This is both disturbing and upsetting…all these little yellow dots in the above screen shot from the Orange County Heath Care Agency’s website (ocbeachinfo.com) represent ocean water bacteria levels tested after the recent rains to exceed state health standards and may cause illness. It’s our whole OC coastline!
I’m both angered at the general populous for dumping so much of their trash, recyclables, syringes, and who knows what else into our drains and waterways (or just onto the street where they eventually wind up in our storm water system), but also at the State of California.
Many other states have strict requirements that all storm water be sieved and filtered before being discharged, both for particulates and things like heavy metals. There are numerous products in the AEC industry that fit right below a storm grate or manhole, in-line or at the end of a line, used across the country which have been documented do just that. Yet in California we get a little stenciled fish that tells us “drains to ocean.”
In a state where we do so much for the environment, and claim to do more than the rest of the country, how are we so far behind on this? Save the paint, buy and install the proper infrastructure.
Our own Laylan Connelly Perino of the OC Register wrote a terrific article calling attention to the storm debris/trash now accumulating along our coast, but we need a proactive solution.
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