Volunteers
submerge to clean ocean
By Cassady Jeremias
On-line Forty-Niner
Divers
of all kinds came together Saturday for
an underwater cleanup of the waters in and
around Long Beach.
Divers
of all levels from certified open water
divers, divemasters and rescue divers volunteered
their time at three locations including
Colorado Lagoon, Basin Number Four and the
breakwater.
The
event was put together by the Professional
Association of Diving Instructors, who put
on the national “Project Aware” for Earth
Day in an effort to clean up the coast.
Local
coordinator of the event Chris Ward said
it is about time the Long Beach community
got involved. He said the city is about
the ocean, and we need to have a clean and
healthy coast.
“I
don’t like to see marine life suffer from
eating plastic,” he said. “People are the
cause of pollution, but they are also the
solution to pollution.”
Ward
said they found over 100 cell phones on
the ocean floor at the annual volunteer
cleanup at Catalina. He also said a main
worry around the bay and waters around Long
Beach is polluted runoff, which is especially
dangerous after it rains.
“We
really have to be careful about litter,”
Ward said. “We have this side-by-side drain
system that runs from the mountains to the
ocean where every Styrofoam cup from somebody
in Pomona or Van Nuys thrown down finds
its way to the ocean.”
Ward
said at this event, which he hopes will
become an annual one, volunteers were also
involved in a beach clean up along side
the divers. Some divers started at a floating
classroom provided by Eugene Anderson of
the Long Beach Marine Institute.
Tom
Murray, owner of the Pacific Sporting Goods
in Long Beach said the locations were chosen
to get rid of trash on beaches and in waters
used by children and swimmers. He also said
the survey of marine life would give them
ideas to what is living and the health of
the bay.
“Anchovies
and sardines means proliferation of life
in the bay,” he said.
“There
are some fish however, that are an indicator
of what is polluting the bay.”
According
to a public health advisory put out by the
Department of Fish and Game, certain fish
caught in the bay should not be eaten, or
eaten only on a very limited basis. Queenfish,
Black Croaker, and Surf Perches are all
limited to only one serving per month. White
croaker caught in the Los Angeles or Long
Beach harbor should not be eaten anytime
according to the advisory, Murray said it
is probably due to the run off pollution.
“They
stay in one spot all their lives. They hang
out around the piers and docks all their
lives,” he said.
Tom
Napoli, an environmental scientist for the
California Department of Fish and Game,
said among pollutants found in these fish
is DDT, an insecticide that has been illegal
sine the late 1970s. He said it originated
at the Montrose Chemical Plant, and used
to be discarded through the sewer system.
According
to the survey, PCB has also been found in
the fish, a chemical Napoli said is a man
made carcinogen used in electric transformers.
PCB tends to accumulate in the food chain
and work its way up. Despite
certain pollutants and chemicals, Ward said
he was pleased to find so little trash.
He did have the chance to award a prize
for the weirdest piece of trash found, which
was a huge “rhino sized pooper scooper”
found by one of the divers. Volunteers also
found binoculars and an array of sea life
including giant sea stars, sand sharks,
and rays. They were treated to food from
Wild Oats Market, soda from Reeds, Red Bull,
and hot dogs cooked by the Long Beach Fire
Department.
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