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| San Gabriel River trash bound for the Ocean-6/1/08 |
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| Urge Cities boarding rivers to prevent pollution of our waters. |
| Los Cerritos Channel, Long Beach CA |
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| Sign posted next to the channel. At one time clams were harvested and canned nearby...for human use |
Trash clogs storm drains and causes flooding of local streets, it gets into the rivers
and washes out to sea. Plastics and toxins washed from city streets into storm drains poison sea life and
fish...including seafood we eat. And who likes to see a bunch of trash down on the beach?
Click any photo on this page to enlarge.
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Every day millions of
pieces of trash plus polluted storm drain water travels from city streets through the storm drains and into our
watersheds, eventually floating into the ocean.
The picture on the left is the San Gabriel
River about 1 mile before it enters the ocean.
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Write letters to local city governments asking for their help since most of
this stuff comes from their city streets. Some cities are already doing something about the issue but maybe there is
still improvement needed. For example in Long Beach some storm drain water is recycled and used to irrigate city parks...but
not all of it. Long Beach has storm drain covers in some places but not everywhere. I write them and encourage
expansion of water recycling and covers.
Suggestions ranging from citizen awareness efforts, organize a
neighborhood cleanup, better street sweeping, some method of keeping trash from entering the storm drains such as screens
covering drainage openings, more frequent cleaning of storm drains, encourging cities to recycle storm drain water instead
of letting it run into the rivers...or anything else you can think of...could help.
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| The day after the first 2009 rain storm, 10/14/09 |
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| Los Cerritos Channel, Long Beach CA...1/2 mile or less from the ocean. |
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| Los Cerritos Channel again, 10/14/09 |
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There are many sources of trash and pollution that harm our waters including
balloons, plastic toys, trash thrown from car windows, illegal dumping into rivers, pet waste that is not properly cleaned
up, oil or chemical waste from cars which gets washed from the pavement into the storm drains or gets dumped into
gutters, and yard water runoff containing fertilizers, lawn/garden clippings and leaves.
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Take some time out and stop and really look at a flood control sometime. Join
a beach cleanup and see the amount of trash that washes up on the beach from the ocean...a large amount of it does not
come from beach goers but washes to the ocean from storm drains--it is especially bad after a winter storm. And this
is just the stuff you can see...many other toxins from oil on roads to fertilizers from yards also wash out to sea.
For a different method of gardening to prevent toxins from your yard see www.caopenspace.org/myofg.html.
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| San Gabriel River, Long Beach CA |
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| One mile or less from the ocean, 10/14/09 ... the day after this year's first big rain storm |
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| San Gabriel River, Long Beach CA. Algal bloom is caused by excess nutrients in the water. |
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| Storm drain cover, Long Beach CA (residential stree near the Los Cerritos Channel) |
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| Prevention of leaves, grass and yard clippings from entering storm drains helps prevent algal bloom |
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| Among the trash in this picture, cigarette butts and a tennis ball. 10/14/09 |
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Below is a contact list for several cities. Check back, I'll
be adding more city contact info to the list. Send the mayors and council members an email and voice your concerns
about watershed and ocean pollution, ask what their city is doing about the problem and offer your suggestions and observations.
Thanks!
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