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Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in southern California. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 189,594. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west, by Seal Beach on the north, by Costa Mesa on the south, by Westminster on the northeast, and by Fountain Valley on the east.
It is known for its long 14 km (8.5 miles) beach, mild climate, and excellent surfing. The waves are a unique natural effect caused by edge-diffraction of ocean swells by the island of Catalina, and waves from distant hurricanes. Because of the curve of the coastline at Huntington Beach, the local beach actually faces southwest. In summer, the southwest-facing beach often has very strong surf from hurricanes off the Mexican coast.
Fountain Valley
A classic bedroom community, Fountain Valley is a safe, middle-class, residential area. Most of the city's residents commute to work in other urban centers. However, unlike most commuter towns, Fountain Valley is by no means a rural or "exurban" city, as it is located in the heart of Orange County's sprawling developed landscape. In recent years, Fountain Valley has actually seen an increase in workers commuting to the city, with the growth of an office/commercial center along Newhope St. where such companies as Starbucks occupy office space. (see Business below).
Fountain Valley is home to Mile Square Regional Park, a 640 acre (2.6 km²) park containing two lakes, three 18-hole golf courses, playing fields, picnic shelters, and a twenty acre urban nature area planted with California native plants, a 55 acre (223,000 m²) recreation center with tennis courts, basketball courts, racquetball courts, a gymnasium, and the Kingston Boys & Girls Club; also a community center and a new senior center that opened in June, 2005.
Fire protection and emergency medical services are provided by two stations of the Fountain Valley Fire Department. Law enforcement is provided by the Fountain Valley Police Department. Ambulance service is provided by Care Ambulance Service.
The Orange County Sanitation District's primary plant is located in Fountain Valley next to the Santa Ana River. The agency is the third-largest sanitation district in the western United States. This location is also home to the agency's administrative offices.
Fountain Valley has two fully accredited major medical centers: the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital with 400 beds available, and Orange Coast Memorial Hospital with 230 beds and a medical clinic. Orange Coast Memorial recently announced plans for a 6-story outpatient center to be added, flying ballons above the hospital grounds to simulate the visual impact for Fountain Valley residents.
The city also has 18 churches, one Reform synagogue, a mosque and a public library.
Fountain Valley has its own newspaper, the Fountain Valley View, operated by the Orange County Register.
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Beach Areas Education
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Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach is also the home of Golden West College, which offers two-year associates of arts degrees, and transfer programs to state universities.
The public television station KOCE-TV operates from the Golden West College campus, in conjunction with the Golden West College Media Arts program.
Huntington Beach is in the Huntington Beach Union High School District. Which includes Edison High School, Huntington Beach High School, Marina High School, and Ocean View High School in the city of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley High School in the city of Fountain Valley, and Westminster High School in the city of Westminster. The district also has an alternative school, Valley Vista High School, and an independent study school, Coast High School.
Huntington Beach High School, which is the district's flagship school, celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 2006. The city has two elementary school districts: Huntington Beach City with 9 schools and Ocean View with 15.
Fountain Valley
There are three high schools, two middle schools, eight elementary schools, one K-12 school, and two K-8 schools. Although, some students who live in the city of Fountain Valley actually attend schools in other cities.
High schools in Huntington Beach Union High School District
* Fountain Valley High School
* Valley Vista High School
High schools in Garden Grove Unified School District
* Los Amigos High School
Middle schools in Fountain Valley School District
* Fulton Middle School
* Masuda Middle School
Middle schools in Ocean View Middle School District
* Vista View Middle School
Elementary schools in Garden Grove Unified School District
* Allen Elementary School
* Monroe Elementary School
* Northcutt Elementary School
Elementary schools in Fountain Valley School District
* Courreges Elementary School
* Cox Elementary School
* Gisler Elementary School
* Moiola Elementary School (K-8)
* Plavan Elementary School
* Tamura Elementary School
Private schools
* Carden School of Fountain Valley (K-8)
* First Southern Baptist Christian School (K-12)
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Beach Areas Employment
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Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach also sits above a large natural salt dome containing oil. Although the oil is mostly depleted, extraction continues at a slow rate, and still provides significant local income. There are only two off-shore extraction facilities left, however, and the day is not far off when oil production in the city will cease and tourism will replace it as the primary revenue source for resident industry.
New outdoor shopping malls are being built on either side of Main Street on PCH. These constructions will interfere with the views of some downtown residential homes and restaurants. The city is also discussing closing off Main Street to cars from PCH (Highway 1) through the retail shopping and restaurant areas, making it a pedestrian zone only.
Huntington Beach has an off-shore oil terminus for the tankers that support the Alaska Pipeline. The terminus pipes run inland to a refinery in Santa Fe Springs. Huntington Beach also has the Gothard-Talbert terminus for the Orange County portion of the pipeline running from the Chevron El Segundo refinery.
Several hotels have been constructed on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway (California Highway 1) within view of the beach, just southeast of the pier.
Huntington Beach contains a major installation of Boeing, formerly McDonnell-Douglas. A number of installations on the Boeing campus were originally constructed to service the Apollo Program, most notably the production of the S-IVB upper stage for the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, and some nearby telephone poles are still marked "Apollo Dedicated Mission Control Line."
Huntington Beach contains the administrative headquarters of Sea Launch, a commercial space vehicle launch enterprise whose largest stockholder is Boeing.
Huntington Beach contains a small industrial district in its northwest corner, near the borders with Westminster and Seal Beach.
Fountain Valley
Fountain Valley has blooming commercial innovations but little industrial production of its own. The limited agricultural production consists of several fields of strawberries.
Fountain Valley is home to the national headquarters of Hyundai Motor Company and the global headquarters of memory chip manufacturer Kingston Technologies. The commercial area along Newhope St. is also home to offices for companies such as D-Link, Starbucks, Satura and the Orange County Register. There are also a limited number of light industrial companies in this area.
The increasing commercial growth can be evidenced by the frequent rush-hour traffic bottlenecks on the I-405 through Fountain Valley.
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Beach Areas History
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Huntington Beach
The area was originally occupied by the Tongva people. European settlement can be traced to a Spanish soldier, Manuel Nieto, who in 1784 received a Spanish land grant of 300,000 acres (1,200 km²), Rancho Los Nietos, as a reward for his military service and to encourage settlement in Alta California. Nieto's western area was reduced in 1790 because of a dispute with the Mission San Gabriel, but he retained thousands of acres stretching from the hills north of Whittier, Fullerton and Brea, south to the Pacific Ocean, and from today's Los Angeles River on the west, to the Santa Ana River on the east.
Huntington Beach incorporated in 1909 under its first mayor, Ed Manning. Its original developer was the Huntington Beach Company, a real-estate development firm owned by Henry Huntington, a railroad magnate after whom the city is named. The Huntington Company is still a major land-owner in the city, and still owns most of the local mineral rights.
The city's first high school, Huntington Beach High School was built in 1906. The school's team, the Oilers, are named after the city's original natural resource.
Fountain Valley
The city was incorporated in 1957, before which it was known as Talbert (also as Gospel Swamp). The name of Fountain Valley refers to the very high water table in the area at the time the name was chosen -- it was said that one could merely poke a stick in the ground and a fountain would come up.
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Beach Areas Nature
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Huntington Beach is the site of the world surfing championships, held in the summer every year. The city is often referred to as "Surf City" because of this high profile event, its history, and culture of surfing.
Surf & Beaches
Apart from sponsored surf events, Huntington Beach has some of the best surf breaks in the State of California and that of the United States. Huntington Beach has four different facing beaches: NW, W, SW, S. North West consist of Bolsa Chica State Beach (3.3 Miles), the West consist of "The Cliffs" or "Dog Beach", South West is considered everything north of the Pier which is operated by the City of Huntington Beach. South consist in everything south of the pier which primarily focuses on Huntington State Beach (2.2 Miles), which almost faces true South.
Bolsa Chica State Beach is operated by the State of California, Dept. Parks & Recreation, and Bolsa Chica State Beach Lifeguards. The beach is very narrow and the sand is very coarse. Bolsa Chica tends to have better surf with NW/W swells during the winter season. During the summer months the beach picks up S/SW swells at a very steep angle. Due to the bottom of the beach, surf at Bolsa Chica tends to be slowed down and refined to soft shoulders. Longboards are the best option for surfing in the Bolsa Chica area.
"The Cliffs" or "Dog Beach" is also another popular surf spot. This segment of Huntington Beach obtains these names because dogs are allowed around the cliff area. Beach is very restricted and often is submerged with high tides. Surf at this location tends to be even bigger than Bolsa Chica during the winter and often better. During the summer most of the S/SW swells slide right by and often break poorly. Best option is to take out a longboard, but shortboards will do at times.
Just north and south of the Huntington Beach Pier are some well defined sandbars that shift throughout the year with the different swells. Southside of the Pier is often a popular destination during the summer for good surf, but the Northside can be just as well during the winter. Around the Pier it all depends on the swell and the sandbars. Shortboard is your best option for surfing around the Pier.
South Huntington Beach or also known as Huntington State Beach, is where all the south swells impact the coastline. Huntington State Beach is operated by the State of California, Dept. Parks & Recreation, Huntington State Beach Lifeguards. This beach is very wide with plenty of sand. Sandbars dramatically shift during the spring, summer and fall seasons. Thus creating excellent surf conditions with a combo S/W/NW swell. Due to the Santa Ana River Jetties located at the southern most end of the beach, large sandbars extend across and upcoast, forcing swells to break extremely fast and hollow. Best seasons for surfing at this beach is the summer and fall. Best option for surfing is a shortboard.
Huntington Beach is also a popular destination for kite surfing, and this sport can be viewed on the beach northwest of the pier.
Huntington Beach is the host city of the National Professional Paintball League Super 7 Paintball Championships. The NPPL holds its first event of the year traditionally between the dates of March 23rd through March 26th.
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Beach Areas Recreation
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Huntington Beach has a very large Central Park, located between Gothard and Edwards Streets to the east and west, and Slater and Ellis Avenues to the north and south. The park is vegetated with xeric (low water use) plants, and inhabited by native wildlife. Thick forests encircling the park are supplemented with Australian trees, particularly eucalyptus, a high water use plant.
The Huntington Beach Public Library is located in Central Park in a notable building designed by Richard Neutra and Dion Neutra. It houses almost a half-million volumes, as well as a theater, gift shop and fountains. The library was founded as a Carnegie library in 1914, and has been continuously supported by the city and local activists, with new buildings and active branches at Banning, Oak View, Main Street, and Graham. The library has significant local historical materials and has a special genealogical reference collection. It is independent of the state and county library systems.
The park is also home of Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center, a top class boarding facility that also offers horse rentals to the public, with guided trail rides through the park. The world's second oldest disc golf course is available in the park, as are two small dining areas, a Sports Complex for adult use, the Shipley Nature Center.
The Bolsa Chica Wetlands, which are diminishing rapidly due to development, contains numerous trails and scenic routes. The wetlands themselves have recently been connected with the ocean again, in effort to maintain its previous, unaltered conditions.
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Beach Areas Transportation
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Both cities are highly accessible to the I-405 and close to freeways, 22, 55, and 5. Huntington Beach also sets itself along California's famous Pacific Coast Highway (1).
In addition to the I-405 freeway which bisects the city, Fountain Valley is served by several bus lines operated by Orange County Transportation Authority. Major lines run north/south along Brookhurst and Euclid St., while east-west lines run along Warner, Slater, and Talbert Avenues
Bike lanes are nonexistent on most of the major roads, with the exception of Mile Square Park, which offers wide bike paths along the major streets that mark its boundary.
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Beach Areas Weather
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The climate is generally sunny, dry and cool, although evenings can be excessively damp. In the morning and evening, there are often strong breezes, 15 mph. Ocean water temperatures average 55 to 65 °F. In the summer, temperatures rarely exceed 85 °F. In the winter, temperatures rarely fall below 40 °F, even on clear nights. There are about 10 inches of rain, almost all in mid-winter. Frost occurs only rarely on the coldest winter nights.
The area is annually affected by "June Gloom", caused by the cool air of the Pacific meeting the warm air over the land. This results in overcast and foggy conditions in May and June.
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