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FCEC Newsletter

A trip to Santa Monica Pier. A visit to the local aquarium. It’s just another day at the office for the Fish Contamination Education Collaborative (FCEC) Angler Outreach team who participated in program training for this upcoming year. August and September were active months for training with the Community Outreach, Inspectors and Angler Outreach programs.

“It’s nice to dive into the outreach again and I look forward to conducting outreach at the pier this year,” stated Anna Venencia, who works on the Angler Outreach team with Heal the Bay. Training for Heal the Bay’s Angler Outreach staff took place in September and addressed the Palos Verdes Shelf contamination, the work currently underway for the project as well as training on survey protocols and procedures.

This year, the Angler Outreach training integrated Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and Heal the Bay staff in leading key sessions. Alfonso Montiel, who manages Cabrillo’s Angler Outreach Program, thought that the training was helpful in getting to know the entire angler outreach staff. Frankie Orrala, program coordinator for Heal the Bay’s staff, agreed, “It’s nice to be able to share ideas and training methods with Cabrillo.”  

Not to be outdone, the Inspectors Program hosted a series of trainings throughout August that brought together the City of Long Beach Environmental Health, Los Angeles County Environmental Health and Orange County Health Care Agency Environmental Health. These agencies will inspect more than 50 retail markets to determine if contaminated white croaker are reaching consumers via the marketplace.

The 2008 to 2009 program year will be the first year the Palos Verdes Shelf Institutional Controls program implements a full-scale market inspection program. One of the highlights of the training was learning to identify white croaker in the marketplace. “The fish identification booklet was, by far, a crowd favorite,” said Monica Cardenas, an environmental health specialist with the City of Long Beach.

Training for the Vietnamese Community Outreach Program was also conducted in September at St. Anselm’s Cross Cultural Community Center in Garden Grove. Last year, FCEC conducted a small-scale program targeting the Vietnamese community which successfully showed increased knowledge and behavior change.

With the help of St. Anselm’s and Boat People SOS-Orange County (BPSOS), FCEC hopes to continue the success of the outreach program over the course of this year. The Community Outreach Program will educate Vietnamese community members in over 12 different clinics and approximately 20 workshops in the Orange County area.

Tiffany Nguyen with BPSOS “is honored to partner with FCEC and take on the challenge of changing fish eating behaviors among the Vietnamese community.”