Clean Water Now! NEWS & EVENTS

Cleanups Remove More Than Trash

To paraphrase Neil Young, there's more to the volunteer beach cleanup picture than meets the eye. Most participants feel that the gloves we give them aren't necessary, questioning why we always insist they take them for their own protection. This begins our real public education outreach as grass roots organizations in the trenches: Explaining the WHY's of beach and coastal watershed cleanups.

What administrators of these efforts know and share is that many of the chemical contaminants in our near-tidal zones were introduced or born as coatings inland, sloughed off from their region, migrating with the debris. Long-term observers of Southern California strands have realized by now that the formerly thriving populations, both in numbers and in diversity, are decimated.

In my town, Laguna Beach, it's tough to find a starfish on a rock, let alone the sand dollars that proliferated. Abalones have gone the way of the duck-billed platypus, now as mythological as a unicorn. In 1972 empty abalone shells washed up so big you could build a salad in them. No mas!

Much of this toxic dynamic begins upstream in the watersheds, first in the gutters and storm drains, then eventually discharging into the streams. From there they travel to their watery destinations: Lakes, ponds, or in the case of coastal creeks and rivers, the sea.

While immigrants, rough detritus becomes an amiable surface that collects filmy deposits of hazardous waste, some pathogenic (encouraging illness) some carcinogenic (life-threatening). Many pesticides, herbicides and other noxious substances become like a coating on a pharmaceutical time-release capsule. This is because the spreading or spraying medium is usually a sticky hydrocarbon.

The agitation of surf, rock and sand, coupled with the salt water begins breaking them down and thus they dissolve more readily in the ocean. So as they begin their march they are relatively benign, but soon acquire the ability to cause harm to aquatic and riparian species on their journey. This includes the physical mayhem, the destructive impact damage they
cause tumbling through fragile, vulnerable ecosystems and habitat.

The key to reversing this ceaseless degradation isn't simple. Despite an upsurge in awareness programs and media bombardment, behavioral modification lags far behind.
For every person or demographic group we single out to educate, the others, the predominant transient citizenry, is in a constant state of relocation flux. As a US Marine from the 60's, I can assure you a moving target is not easy to hit.

We cannot demand that folks "Leave it as you found it" because what they're finding are once pristine coves riddled with pollution bullets. The heavier the rainy events, the farther it's flung, plus the faster it travels and accumulates.

The innumerable brochures and door hangers circulated by public agencies have not stemmed the "tide" of trash. Usually they read "The Ocean Begins at Your Door," carrying a warm and fuzzy picture of a mom plus kids on a porch staring at the gutter as junk rolls by at a convenient distance.

Perhaps it is time we environmental advocates (enviros) push the responsibility, the human accountability factor or connection back a bit, and thus our mantra becomes "The Ocean Begins in Your Head!"

Roger Butow