Volunteers arrived early in Belmont Shore to help with the California Coastal Cleanup Day 2011. The annual beach and inland waterway cleanup, is the state's largest volunteer event. Hundreds of volunteers pick up any discarded recyclables, pick styrofoam in the parking lots near the Belmont Plaza Pool , and walked the beach to remove trash.
They were part of the 27th annual California Coastal Cleanup that began at 9 a.m. and ended three hours later, with about 11,000 volunteers collecting roughly 44,000 pounds of trash. The nonprofit environmental group Heal the Bay organized volunteers at 65 Los Angeles County sites, Heal the Bay spokesman Matthew King said. In Orange County, park officials coordinated cleanups at another 60 or so sites.
For a woman from Encino, the coastal cleansing found what may have been lost more than seven years ago: her black wallet. A team of scuba divers taking their clean-up underwater discovered the water-damaged but intact billfold on the ocean floor near the Santa Monica Pier. It was still holding $6 in cash plus some credit cards and a driver's license that expired in 2004. Heal the Bay staffers are attempting to contact a Kristine Bradley and return her soaked wallet
And one lucky Long Beach resident, volunteer Cindy Kent, won an Escape hybrid from an event sponsor, Ford Motor Co.
City News Service contributed to this report.
