Sounding Off:

Earth Day, which officially falls Thursday, is a time for all of us to think about how we can protect our planet. There are many ways to do this: recycling, reusing, conserving resources, preventing pollution. Often simple steps are all it takes. We just need to understand what those steps can be.

From 10 a.m. till 4 p.m. Sunday, we, the Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends, and our partners at Upper Newport Bay will be holding our 20th annual Earth Day event at the spectacular OC Parks Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, which overlooks the bay. What better place to celebrate Earth Day than at a facility constructed mainly with recycled materials, such as the nearly 200 tons of spent oil filters used in making the steel bars that reinforce the concrete in the floor, walls and roof.

Earth Day for us is a celebration of partnerships, because it is only through the cooperative efforts of many organizations that the bay will be preserved. The Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends conducts education and restoration programs here in collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Game, California Coastal Commission, city of Newport Beach, county Parks, county Health Care Agency and UC Irvine.

As the largest of only a few remaining natural estuaries in Southern California, Upper Newport Bay is a critical stop for migrating birds and an important spawning ground and/or nursery for several commercial and sport fish. But the Bay also serves as the path to the ocean for the storm water discharging from an area of more than 150 square miles in central Orange County. The storm water system that provides flood protection for about 700,000 people also gives rise to one of the biggest threats to the bay — the excessive sediment that is carried into the bay during periods of heavy rain. A roughly $50-million project, the Upper Newport Bay Ecosystem Restoration Project, overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers, is nearly complete. Thus far roughly 2 million cubic yards of sediment have been dredged to restore wetland function and provide improved ability to capture future sediment influx, thus protecting habitat and wildlife in the Upper Bay, and navigability in the Lower Bay.