Venoco is currently applying to the City of Carpinteria for a permit to construct a 175 foot high drilling rig on its current onshore site not far from the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve and the Viola Playing Fields. This oil and gas development project could have serious and signficant environmental impacts upon the Bluffs as well as, of course, upon the greater Carpinteria community.

Our Paredon Project Page will give you more information about this project, the Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs position on it, where the project is in the City’s planning “pipeline,” and what you can do about it.

Snow dusts the mountains from a winter storm that also brings much needed rain to the Carpinteria Valley…

Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs held its ninth annual Sunrise Ceremony on Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 7 AM at the Mishopshno Meadow of the Carpinteria Bluffs. Local Chumash descendant Julie Tumamait-Stenslie returned once again to lead the group’s annual informal spiritual observance to renew ourselves and to honor all those who have worked so hard (and continue to work) to save special places like the Carpinteria Bluffs and to make this a better world.

The natural assets of the Carpinteria Bluffs make the Nature Preserve an amazing outdoor classroom that hundreds of students experience each year, from pre-school age on up to folks in their nineties taking Adult Education courses.

On April 27, 2007, over 160 Carpinteria 3rd graders from Canalino, Main, and Aliso Schools as well as Carpinteria Family School took an all day “Earth Day” field trip to the Bluffs, organized and sponsored by Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs in partnership with the City’s Parks and Recreation Department.

The second annual Earth Day Outdoor Classroom featured 4 scientific activities for the students that included observing and painting nature with local, well known artists Whitney Abbott, Meredith Abbott, and Arturo Tello; learning more about harbor seals and sea lions with Susan Allen and Marie Lindsey; bird watching with Bob Hanson, Jane Murray, and Linda and John Callender; and learning about plants and weeds of the Bluffs with Andrea Adams Morden, Geri Ann Campopiano and Donna Jordan. In addition, The students helped plant 20 young Coast Live Oak trees, propagated from a hundred year old Live Oak from the Carpinteria Valley. The students weeded underneath the new trees and sowed the area with California Poppy seeds, the Maritima variety thought to be originally a native of the Bluffs.

Teachers and parents who want to learn more about the Flora & Fauna of the Carpinteria Bluffs or how to use the Bluffs as an incredible outdoor classroom for field trips on other days during the year might be interested in seeing what happens on a typical educational day such as the one Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs sponsored for last year’s Earth Day.
(Click on “outdoor classroom” above to get to our special Field Trip page for teachers and parents.)

Do you have a favorite photo you have taken of the Bluffs that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a favorite story about the Bluffs or about one of your visits to this special place?

Send us your photo (in low resolution) or your story, and we will post them on a “Bluffs Corner” page.

Photo at right: Another work party of community volunteers gathered at the Bluffs on February 3, 2007 to help the City plant close to two hundred natives near the Bailard parking area as well as put in, amidst the line of Tamarisks to the west, 7 Sycamore saplings propagated from cuttings made from Carpinteria’s historic Portola Sycamore.

Want to get involved in helping to restore the Bluffs’ native plant communities? If you are a high school student, this is a great way to earn community service hours.

You are invited to join us at one of our weeding parties, held the first Saturday of each month. We meet at the Bailard Ave parking lot at 1 p.m. Be sure to bring water, sun protection, gloves, and shovels and clippers (if you have them). For more information, please contact Andrea at (805) 684-8077 or by email at carp_parks@yahoo.com.

You can learn more about the Carpinteria Bluffs Management Plan and other on-going stewardship issues regarding this special coastal land by attending the regular meetings of the City of Carpinteria’s Bluffs Advisory Board, a volunteer board created to advise the City on all Bluffs-related matters. For meeting dates and times, please contact Matt Roberts, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Carpinteria, (805) 684-5405, extension 449.

Photo at left: Max Engelsiepen, Anthony Tornello, and Andy Wills planting one of the Sycamore saplings propagated from cuttings made from Carpinteria’s historic Portola Sycamore.

Spring soccer practice on the Viola Playing Fields,
the eastern portion of the Carpinteria Bluffs adjacent to
the Nature Preserve that is dedicated to active recreation.

Carpinteria’s U-12 Girls All-Star AYSO team practice.

The “Boys of Summer.”
Early evening softball
on the west diamond at the Viola Playing Fields.

Volunteers meet at the Carpinteria Bluffs for the semi-annual maintenance of the Acknowledgement Marker near the Bailard Avenue entrance. Shown helping with the cleaning and waxing of the marker are, left to right, Whitney Abbott, Kathleen Lord, Parks Director Matt Roberts, and Ted Rhodes.

Graffiti Alert:
If you see any graffiti or other damage to the marker or to other features at the preserve, please notify immediately Matt Roberts at the city, 805 684-5405 ext. 449, or contact Ted Rhodes through this website.

Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs deeply regrets having inadvertently left off the names of following individuals from the Memorial Section of our Bluffs Acknowledgement Marker:

Maude Armstrong
Michelle Franklin Uellner
Marga Franklin

We plan to include these names on a subsequent commemoratve marker when we are able to complete the public acquisition of the additional 29 acres of Carpinteria Bluffs property that currently remain in private ownership.

We also regret not having more adequately acknowledged, on our marker, the significant contributions of the Dick and Libby Weinberg family of Carpinteria to the Bluffs effort.