*Can you guess the Oregon coastal location of this beach waterfall? Answer at the bottom.
What a spectacular fall it's been along the Oregon coast! This is the season for ocean and coastal recreation with the storm swells pulsing opportunities for surf and the autumn days and evenings offering some of the best, windless and warm beach conditions of the year. And while the rain has begun to fall as we inch toward November, we're uplifted by recent coastal victories for the Oregon Beaches Forever campaign, read on to learn more below.
-Charlie Plybon, Sr. Oregon Policy Manager
Decisions Favor Public Beaches in Recent Rip Rap Cases
Oregon beach lovers and local residents celebrate big wins for the public beach this month through two decisions to deny rip rap applications on the central and north coast. Surfrider and local beach advocates regularly oppose such projects given their negative impacts to the public beach. The decisions, handed down in Cannon Beach and Lincoln Beach this month, represent a more thoughtful direction of local and state agencies that are grappling with adapting management of public beaches to a changing climate. These are significant victories for the Oregon Beaches Forever campaign, learn more about these cases below.
Following the August launch of the Oregon Beaches Forever Campaign Surfrider's Charlie Plybon and Phillip Johnson of Oregon Shores published this great overview of what we're facing on our beaches that landed in several coastal papers - read here.
Surfrider Celebrates 40 Years:
Super Summit and Coastal Champions Awards
This month Surfrider Chapters, Clubs and affiliates from around the globe gathered in Long Beach, CA for a Super Summit event to celebrate Surfrider's 40th anniversary and bring together our network for a powerful weekend of sharing resources, trainings and workshops. The event also recognized key leaders through our Coastal Champion and Wavemaker Awards. Oregon volunteers were well represented and even recognized with several awards for leadership and programmatic work.
This month Surfrider brought onboard our first ever Oregon Sea Grant Policy Fellow, Sarah Wolf! Sarah's official role, Aquaculture Marine Debris Policy Fellow, will work with Oregon aquaculture industry professionals, policymakers, engineers, volunteers, and scientists to tackle a critical issue in Yaquina Bay: marine debris from oyster aquaculture facilities. Sarah's project will focus through a number of creative and collaborative efforts to reduce marine debris within the industry over the next year. You can track Sarah's work on the project website here.
Surfrider Ocean Friendly Programs Expand to Hotels
Recently, Surfrider announced the launch of our new Ocean Friendly Hotels Program. This program is a natural expansion of our successful Ocean Friendly Restaurants Program, and functions similarly, providing a simple framework for hotels looking to eliminate unnecessary single use plastic and implement practices that are better for the health of our ocean. Surfrider's Kaia Hazard joined partners at the Oregon Coast Visitor Association this month at the People's Coast Summit to share more about the growing ocean friendly program efforts that support businesses in reducing their plastic pollution!
Proposed Rules May Require Parking Permits at Beaches
Only 25 of Oregon's 259 marvelous state parks require a day use parking permit, 7 of which are coastal and provide access to beaches. While free parking has been the norm, Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) is proposing new rules that will require a parking permit for all Oregon State Parks. While there are no immediate plans to change parks requiring a permit, the agency will begin reviewing parks for possible changes in 2025. Learn more, last day to comment is this Friday, Nov. 1st.
Dec 4, 6pm - Oregon Beaches Forever Webinar - More Info
Dec 5, 6pm – Newport Chapter Volunteer Appreciation Party - More info
No matter the rain this weekend Surfrider Portland's bi-annual Oswald West Action Day at Shorties was a success! Massive kudos to our volunteer team who've kept this program effort alive for 16 years now rain or shine!
Scenes from Surfrider Coos Bay Chapter's Stand up for the Bay event this month - now in it's 12th year, stellar fall weather graced the paddle out event to raise awareness of the Coos Bay estuary natural and recreational resources.
Greg Long at Surfrider's Super Summit event this month in Long Beach gave an impassioned Saturday keynote.
Volunteers from a beach cleanup in Newport last month at Beverly Beach.
Newport Chapter's Movie night this month at Ossie's Surf Shop featured an exclusive screening of Maya and the Wave.
*PHOTO HEADER ANSWER: Short Beach, located along the lesser visited and iconic stretch of Coast south of Cape Meares. Photo Credit, Chanel Hason with assistance from LightHawk pilot Lane Gromley.
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