Annual Creek to Bay Cleanup to sweep county Thousands of volunteers will join forces on Saturday, April 30 during the ninth annual Creek to Bay Cleanup. Hosted by I Love a Clean San Diego — the county’s oldest environmental nonprofit organization —- the cleanup event seeks to restore the local environment at 75 diverse sites countywide. Last year, more than 5,000 volunteers removed 80 tons of debris from San Diego’s environment in just three hours. That equates to roughly 32 pounds of trash removed by each volunteer, a statistic that organizers said underscores the need for a large volunteer force. As the name suggests, volunteers will remove debris from upstream creeks all the way down to local bays to reinforce one of the event’s key messages — all San Diegans, regardless of ZIP code, are all connected through a vast watershed system that makes up our region. Volunteers of all ages may sign up for the Creek to Bay Cleanup by visiting the event website: www.creektobay.org. SeaWorld does away with plastic bags at gift shops Starting June 18, SeaWorld San Diego will discontinue the use of plastic bags at the park’s gift shops. The marine-life park, which currently goes through more than one million bags each year, will be asking park guests to take a paper bag option or purchase a reusable bag. Park officials said plastic bags are a big problem for certain species of sea turtles, especially leatherbacks, as they sometimes mistake them for jellyfish. The discontinuance of the plastic bags coincides with the opening of the new Turtle Reef interactive exhibit, which opens the same day. Thad Dirksen, SeaWorld’s curator of fishes, said Turtle Reef will feature more than 60 threatened and endangered hawksbill and green sea turtles, including some that hatched at the marine-life park in 2009. SeaWorld also has hosted six free electronic recycling events over the last four years. Since 2007, these events have collected 271,212 pounds and raised about $27,370. DUI checkpoint in Pacific Beach nets 27 arrests of impaired drivers The San Diego Police Department arrested 27 drunken-driving suspects at a checkpoint in Pacific Beach on April 16 in the 2400 block of Grand Ave. Police said 725 vehicles passed through the checkpoint and 48 motorists were detained for sobriety checks. One person was arrested for felony possession of a controlled substance and one for being drunk in public, said police. Nearly 30 vehicles were impounded.