Imperial Beach — I don't believe there has been any improvement...
- Thread starter Ken Jones
- Start date
This doesn't seem to be a political article. Not sure what bias is shown given that the news primarily seems to be from Scripps (UCSD). The sewage problem at Imperial Beach has been known for years and millions of dollars have been spent to fix it with little results. It's always a topic of conversation both with surfers and fishermen.
Man, I love this issue.
Wading in the surf should be enough to make you wonder about water conditions.
I'm on a septic system where I live and I often think about what happens when I flush. Folks in other areas can't or won't be concerned with it.
Some of the local fish have even been given colorful nicknames due to their close proximity to sewage.
It's always been a simple solution to flush the toilet and imagine it just dissappears. If you spend any time on the ocean, it becomes pretty clear where that tainted water goes.
I don't want to become too Mother-earthy, but I've been looking at ways to keep the matter individual and not political.
For example, composting and incinerating toilets are an idea. Sure, it's an inconvenience, but if one person stops adding to the waste burden, that's a step in the right direction.
Wading in the surf should be enough to make you wonder about water conditions.
I'm on a septic system where I live and I often think about what happens when I flush. Folks in other areas can't or won't be concerned with it.
Some of the local fish have even been given colorful nicknames due to their close proximity to sewage.
It's always been a simple solution to flush the toilet and imagine it just dissappears. If you spend any time on the ocean, it becomes pretty clear where that tainted water goes.
I don't want to become too Mother-earthy, but I've been looking at ways to keep the matter individual and not political.
For example, composting and incinerating toilets are an idea. Sure, it's an inconvenience, but if one person stops adding to the waste burden, that's a step in the right direction.
If septic is installed correctly it's basically like composting via the leech field... Just don't overflow your septic with too much water.
Look for some colorful and horrible red-tides in San Diego this summer with all the nutrients in the water now... Be sure to wear a
breathing filter to avoid bacterial and viral infections of your lungs too it seems... while researching the above article I came across
other articles that said one of the microbes found in the water there was the Hepatitis A virus.
Look for some colorful and horrible red-tides in San Diego this summer with all the nutrients in the water now... Be sure to wear a
breathing filter to avoid bacterial and viral infections of your lungs too it seems... while researching the above article I came across
other articles that said one of the microbes found in the water there was the Hepatitis A virus.
I remember being a kid and there was less sewage in the water but we had to scrape tar off the bottoms of my feet, which I believe was the result of oil drilling. Still, I remember animal life was more abundant. It was not unusual to find live sand dollars in the surf. Older folks here have probably seen similar dwindling of life in the surf zone.
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This line by Steinnbeck in Sweet Thursday is often quoted elsewhere. It fits:
"The canneries themselves fought the war by getting the limit taken off fish and catching them all. It was done for patriotic reasons, but that didn’t bring the fish back. As with the oysters in Alice, “They’d eaten every one.” It was the same noble impulse that stripped the forests of the West and right now is pumping water out of California’s earth faster than it can rain back in. When the desert comes, people will be sad."
"The canneries themselves fought the war by getting the limit taken off fish and catching them all. It was done for patriotic reasons, but that didn’t bring the fish back. As with the oysters in Alice, “They’d eaten every one.” It was the same noble impulse that stripped the forests of the West and right now is pumping water out of California’s earth faster than it can rain back in. When the desert comes, people will be sad."
Actually, in regard to the sardines, the decline turned out to be over fishing combined with a change in water temperatures that affected reproduction. We now know that sardines and anchovies go in opposite cycles with sardines up when anchovies are down and anchovies up when sardines down. The sardine numbers were probably already headed down but the over fishing by the canneries tipped the balance and made it even worse and you hardly saw a sardine from the 40s into the 80s. The numbers still go up and down but at least the commercial guys are more tightly controlled by the various agencies.