Students clean San Gabriel riverbed

By Vanessa Stone
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer

Thirty-seven students enrolled in Cal State Long Beach professor Gwen Goodmanlowes' marine biology class, offered a helping hand to the environment on Saturday as they picked up trash in the San Gabriel Riverbed in Seal Beach.

The clean up was hosted by non-profit organization, Save Our Beach, dedicated to improving water quality along Southern California's coastline.

Volunteers pulled out more than a thousand pounds of trash from the riverbed. Their efforts prevented shopping carts, bikes, beach chairs, glass, a television, large pieces of wood and steel from entering the ocean.

Steve and Kim Masoner, the Seal Beach couple who started the organization, said that they have seen computers, dirty diapers, cell phones, televisions, sofas and half a bowling ball pulled out of the riverbed.

In the past, one volunteer said that unsanitary items such as condoms, syringes, and hypodermic needles contaminated the riverbed.

Despite the amount of trash collected, some locals still love to fish in the riverbed.

"I hope they do not eat the fish that they catch," said CSULB alumnus Noy Loeur. "Education and awareness are important because some people far inland do not realize that when they dump motor oil into the drainage system it does not evaporate along with trash and run-off."

Most of the pollution problem is contributed to run-off from streets in 82 cities all the way up the river as far as Pasadena, according to the Save Our Beach Web site.

The Save Our Beach corporation recently introduced an environmental education curriculum in Southern California elementary, middle and high schools.

The curriculum will educate children that run-off carries anything from the streets such as pesticides, pet waste, motor oil or cigarettes down street gutters to storm drains and straight into the ocean, untreated.

Just one quart of used motor oil can pollute 250,000 gallons of ocean water, according to the Save Our Beach Web site.

Although the hundreds of bags taken away by the Seal Beach public workers would say otherwise, Kim Masoner said "a month ago the ocean water tested very good, but that is only because we have not had rain in a long time."

"Whenever it rains the water gets really nasty because of sewage spills," Steve Masoner said. With a sewage plant just up the river, Kim Masoner said that there are times when the water pollution is really bad and also times when it is really good. "When it rains the water flows over the top and raw sewage spills."

The ocean has its own ecosystem but can only repair so much pollution. Every year over 40 tons of trash wash-up on the beaches and approximately 80 percent of that could have been recycled, according to the Save Our Beach Web site.

The website also states that, "An average of 870,000 cigarette butts are thrown in the street every month in Los Angeles."

It is as simple as picking up one cigarette butt or one piece of trash on the street. Any trash thrown or left on the street will make its way to the ocean.

To help clean up some of the most popular beaches in the county, the Save Our Beach corporation conducts cleanups the fourth Saturday of each month. The next cleanup is on October 25 in Huntington from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and in Seal Beach from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. at 1st Street Beach Lot.