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Sport Chalet Selected to Forbes’ “200 Best
Small Companies In America” List

Sport Chalet, Inc. (Nasdaq:SPCH), has been selected by Forbes Magazine as one of the “200 Best Small Companies in America.” This is the first time that Sport Chalet has been recognized on this distinctive list and it is one of only four retailers in California on the list. Additionally, Sport Chalet is one of only two sporting goods retailers in the publication.
Upon receiving the news, Craig Levra, President and CEO of Sport Chalet stated, “For Forbes Magazine to acknowledge our company gives national recognition to the great effort of our 1,900+ employees, starting with our store employees and store managers, our support staff in our warehouse, and finally our corporate employees. Everyone within the company has a big part in making Sport Chalet what it is today and what it will undoubtedly achieve in the future. Furthermore, this accolade reinforces the vision our Founder and Chairman, Norbert Olberz, set forth for the company: ‘Not to be the biggest, but the best.’”
Sport Chalet is a leading operator of full service specialty sporting goods superstores operating in Southern California for more than 40 years. The Company offers over 35 services for the serious sports enthusiast, including custom golf club fitting and repair, ski rental and repair, full dive training and certification programs, scuba charters, team sales, racquet stringing, and bicycle tune up and repair through its 23 locations. The address for Sport Chalet’s web site is www.sportchalet.com.

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Rohrabacher Introduces Coastal Resources Enhancement
and Restoration Legislation

Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) introduced, H.R. 5535, the Coastal Resources Enhancement and Restoration Act of 2000, a comprehensive bill which would create new federal funding sources to help protect and maintain America’s coastal waters, shoreline and beaches.
In response to continued coastal erosion, Rohrabacher has crafted legislation that would allow for more research into methods of preserving our shores from erosion, by requiring the National Science Foundation to set aside a significant part of its engineering grants for shoreline protection research. The need for more effective and environmentally sound ways of maintaining our coastline was recently highlighted in a Federal Emergency Management Agency study, which predicted that 25 percent of the homes and other buildings within 500 feet of our shores could be under water in 60 years.
  In addition, the legislation would also create an off-budget trust fund that will guarantee eroding beaches are replenished with sand and safeguarded from further deterioration. This is a special necessity since the Clinton-Gore administration no longer considers shoreline protection to be a priority.
 The bill also seeks to protect beaches from urban runoff and other forms of water-borne pollution that cause illness, destroy aquatic habitat, and ruin local economies when beaches are closed because of high bacterial count. H.R. 5535 creates, as a part of the sand replenishment trust fund, a special account to fund efforts, such as sewage treatment and storm run-off diversion, to fight urban runoff.
 Rohrabacher’s legislation directs the Environmental Protection Agency to let federal institutions that violate the Clean Water Act to construct artificial reefs and undertake local aquatic habitat restoration, including replenishing sand, in lieu of paying fines and sending money back into the federal government’s coffers.
 H.R. 5535 would also consolidate the separate pollution tracking and ocean observation efforts of the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Navy.
 ”My coastal bill would make it easier and more effective for cities and states to fight water pollution and beach erosion by using the information from various federal agencies,” Rohrabacher said.
 Rohrabacher’s legislation has been referred to the House Resources, House Transportation and Infrastructure, and House Science Committees.

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DAN Expands The Charter Boat Identification System

Divers abandoned at dive sites have made significant headlines over the past two years, from the U.S. mainland to Australia. This often results from dive boat operators merely taking head counts of divers after their dives.
Divers Alert Network, Inc. (DAN) President and CEO Peter B. Bennett, Ph.D., D.Sc., calls these incidents both serious and unnecessarily risky. “Head counts are not enough,” Bennett said. “Leaving one diver behind in the water is one too many.”
DAN now invites dive enthusiasts to join the following special efforts aimed at making diving from boats safer for divers:
1) In all future DAN Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine courses, DAN will use its Charter Boat Identification (CBID) System on the dive boats.
2) DAN will also contribute its CBID System to all participants in DAN’s Partners in Dive Safety program, through which DAN recognizes dive operations that have reached a high level of emergency preparedness. This is in concert with current recreational diving recommendations.
3) DAN Members can donate either a half-size board ($50), a full-size board ($100) or even multiple boards to a favorite dive operation.
Created in 1998, the CBID System was designed to prevent abandoned or lost divers following the dive. Here’s how the system operates: At the beginning of the dive trip, the divemaster assigns each diver an individually numbered CB DAN Tag. When the diver is on board, the Tag is placed on a CBID Board. Before diving, the diver removes the Tag and clips it to his or her buoyancy compensation device (BCD). The Tag number corresponds to the divemaster’s roster number. When returning to the boat, the diver unclips the tag and returns it to the board. The captain then knows who is on board and who remains in the water and cannot leave the dive site until all the tags are returned to the CBID Board. Each tag bears the diving vessel’s name and phone number, DAN logo and DAN Diving Emergency Hotline telephone number.
Donations for the support of this program can be made out to DAN. Please make note that this is for the “CBID Program.” If you have a preference for board placement, please note the name of the vessel, place and phone number. DAN will try to accommodate these requests. To make a gift, please mail to DAN Development, The Peter B. Bennett Center, 6 West Colony Place, Durham, NC 27705.
For more information about the new options for the CBID System, call DAN +1-684-2948, or 1-800-446-2671, c/o program coordinators Cindi Courter, ext. 446 and/or Cindi Easterling, ext. 610.

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Emergency Closure for Lingcod

The Office of Administrative Law approved the California Fish and Game Commission’s emergency action of October 20, 2000, to close ocean-based recreational fishing for lingcod statewide during the final two months of the year. The restrictions became effective Wednesday, November 1, 2000, and will remain in place through December.
Because this is an emergency action, these regulations will be effective for a maximum of 120 days. During that period the Commission will consider modifications to the regulations and accept public comments.
The Commission approved the emergency closure at its regularly scheduled meeting in San Diego, responding to concerns that the harvest of lingcod will exceed its allowable catch for 2000. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has indicated it will follow suit and restrict fishing for lingcod from three to 200 miles offshore.
Lingcod has been declared “overfished” by the NMFS and a rebuilding plan has been developed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC). Fishing for lingcod was closed this year in Southern California during January and February and in Central California during March and April to protect rockfish along with this highly prized bottom fish species, which grow to over 30 pounds in weight. Restrictions have been applied to fisheries from Cape Flattery in northern Washington, to the California/Mexico border with the aim of recovering the population to a maximum level of sustainable harvest.
“Commissioners acted on recommendations made by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) based on multi-year rebuilding plans developed for lingcod by PFMC,” said LB Boydstun of the DFG’s Intergovernmental Affairs Office. Based on recent years’ landing patterns, Boydstun estimated optimum yield for the species would be exceeded before the end of December, and place lingcod at less than 10 percent of its unfished population level.
To make public comment email rtreanor@dfg.ca.gov or write to Fish and Game Commission, 1416 9th Street — Room 1320, Sacramento, CA 95814.

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California Diver Completes 50 State Dive Expedition

Most people think of destinations like Florida, Hawaii, or California when they consider American scuba diving. Not Charles Ballinger. This year he’s dived all 50 states in a coast-to-coast exploration of the American dive experience.
Ballinger has been to 47 countries and has written for 8 magazines in his 48 years. He’s now experienced the adventure of a lifetime in America. “Some of the least likely states have provided the biggest surprises. So far, I’ve discovered seven million year-old shark teeth in a South Carolina river, incredible ‘cave’ diving in a flooded lead mine in Missouri, and historic shipwreck diving in places like Lake Champlain (VT) and Lake George (NY). Most lakes created by dams have ‘sunken’ towns, bridges or even graveyards to explore and water everywhere has been the dumping ground for centuries of historic artifacts.
The variety of diving has been incredible: oil rigs, caverns, ship wrecks, kelp forests, rivers, quarries, springs, mines, deep dives, and altitude dives in water from 97° to 35°.
“Diving an abandoned nuclear missile silo in Texas and a volcano in Utah were quite memorable, as was my dive with the governor of North Dakota,” says Ballinger of his 15,000 mile dive safari.
The project was designed to promote scuba diving, a sport Ballinger feels is somewhat misrepresented. “Many people are led to believe it’s just about tropical reefs thousands of miles away. That’s a very limited perspective when it excludes most adventure diving.”
Ballinger has spent this year chasing the adventures, the characters and the surprises that make domestic diving so special. He’s dived all over California, but will highlight the Channel Islands.
The expedition will be chronicled in his book “An American Adventure Underwater — Fifty Dives in Fifty States.”
For more information e-mail: bukchalngr@aol.com or visit the website www.dive50states.com.

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