HUNTINGTON BEACH : Beach Lets Sunshine In for Cleanup

Looking out over the crashing surf on a picturesque spring afternoon, about 50 government, community and corporate representatives gathered Monday to formally announce a program seeking to preserve the beauty of the beach.

The ceremony celebrated the beginning of the city’s adopt-a-beach program, which will keep the city beach clean without using city funds.

Sunshine Makers, which manufactures a household cleaning product called Simple Green, will pay each of 11 local community groups $1,000 a year to pick up trash from a designated strip of the beach.

The adopt-a-beach program, initiated by the state Coastal Commission, is the most elaborate of its kind in the state, officials said.

In other cities, several corporate sponsors have pitched in to help pay for one-year cleanup programs.

In Huntington Beach, the city and Sunshine Makers have agreed to a pact under which the firm will fund the entire project.

The program is part of Huntington Beach’s effort to cut city expenses by seeking volunteerism and corporate sponsorships.

Because of city spending cuts, beach crews have been stretched thin.

“Trash pickup has become virtually impossible” during the off-season, Mayor Jim Silva said Monday. “As a result, we have a terrible trash buildup on our beach.”

Along with keeping the beach clean and providing money for the nonprofit groups, the program will save the city $40,000 in salaries it otherwise would have to pay to do the job, officials said.

The program is also linked to the city’s campaign to promote itself as “Surf City,” under which it is seeking corporate sponsorships and working to spruce up its image.

Dean Torrence, half of the 1960s surf-rock duo Jan and Dean--whose biggest hit, “Surf City,” celebrated Huntington Beach--attended Monday’s ceremony and said the beach cleanup program is much needed.

“Surf City, right now, is somewhere in between reality and fantasy,” said Torrence, who is helping promote the Surf City campaign.

“But with these kinds of programs, we’re taking one step closer toward reality, I hope.”

A two-month pilot project is now underway in which the 11 local nonprofit groups are picking up trash from the beach one day a week. At the end of the pilot, each group will receive $200 from Sunshine Makers.

The full-scale program will begin Oct. 1, when city cleanup crews end their trash pickup detail for the season.

The groups--including a citizen activist group, youth sports organizations, a church and a school PTA--will pick up the trash from October through March, 1993, in exchange for $1,000 from the firm.

The organizations designated to clean a segment of the city beach are: Huntington Beach Tomorrow, a citizens’ action group; AYSO Region 55, a youth soccer organization; YMCA Trail Blazers, an affiliate of the local YMCA; D.I.V.E.R.S., a scuba-diving group; AYSO Region 56; the Grace Lutheran Church; the Huntington Beach Council on Aging; the Friends of the Library; the Huntington Beach Philharmonic Juniors; the Smith School PTA and the Huntington Harbour Garden Club.