Lifelong surfer here, pollution from storm drains doesn’t take a scientific study to see. It’s discusting out there after it rains and it seems like it gets worse and worse. I used to surf after it rained all the time but these days I just can’t risk it anymore. So much trash, dead animals, condoms it’s gross.
I am curious about the opposite. December 2017 I was staying on the New Port Beach peninsula in So Cal and the water was clearer then I think I've ever seen anywhere in the entire world. I grew up in the OC and have been to or by the beach 100s of times, I had never seen it so clear. Any idea why? Is it common? Was it fluke? Is it seasonal? Has something changed?
You could walk half way down Balboa Pier and still clearly see the bottom of the ocean. I don't think I'd ever seen the bottom of the ocean through waves in any beach in So Cal ever. Never thought of it as dirty so much as just normal for sea water.
Not easy to say without chemically analyzing the water. Oceanographers deal with this questions all the time
Roughly speaking, clear water means less life, less phytoplancton. The algae had gone. Is registered in lakes when water turns more acidic by contamination. They appear pristine, but is an ilusion. The ecosystem is very ill.
At sea this can normally indicate a different water mass by natural processes. Different salinity or temperature, a change on winds, barometric pressure, or sea currents can change this. Is totally normal.
And this could happen also when trowing signifiant amounts of something that kills microscopic life to the water (chlorine to pipelines for example).
It happens occasionally when there's very little tidal motion (slack tide), not a lot of small particulates from run off or recent rain, and most importantly not a lot of nutrients in the water - most murky water I run into in SoCal is from various species of plankton blooming, and the various zooplankton and copepods that follow in their wake.
It's really interesting when the visibility is radically different at different depths because of temperature and salinity gradients. Last time I dove it was crystal clear for 15 feet, then a floor of murky green with 2 foot viz, then the clarity opened up about 30 feet down.
Warmer water supports less oxygen and life, so less stuff to see through. Not sure if that's the case here, but waters in the tropics are much more clear, but support much less life vs a kelp forest off CA.
If you look at the pollution reports at the sites in the Santa Monica Bay, it has gotten a lot cleaner in terms of bacteria (from storm drains) over the last 10-15 years. I don’t go often enough to comment on trash like that you mention, but the bacteria situation is much improved. (But I still don’t go after it rains...)
The other day I had diahrea for 2 days, I initially thought food poisoning, then my surfer friend made the connection I had surfed in the last 24 hours, and we had heavy rain in Bay area those days.
I think it’s interesting that it’s tragic when cute animals die in small numbers due to totally natural causes, and totally irrelevant when non-cute animals die by the millions due to human infrastructure.
To the north and to the south of this particular data point, mammal rescues are normal.
Normal (El Nino) weather patterns seem to explain why these young animals may be having trouble finding food. And while plenty of spectres are thrown about like toxic algae and pollution from storm runoff, no data are actually provided, which IMO is beneath journalistic standards.
> Normal (El Nino) weather patterns seem to explain why these young animals may be having trouble finding food. And while plenty of spectres are thrown about like toxic algae and pollution from storm runoff, no data are actually provided, which IMO is beneath journalistic standards.
What? That is literally what the article says:
> Though the exact reason for the increase in the number of strandings this year is unknown, Higuchi said it could be tied to warmer ocean waters caused by an El Niño weather pattern or excess stormwater runoff from this winter’s rains.
And they go on to provide other possible explanations:
> Necropsy results have yet to come in, but Viezbicke thinks the dolphin beachings have something to do with this year’s rain, which has pounded the state in recent months with a series of *atmospheric river-fueled front.
> It’s possible the storm runoff that washes waste into the ocean has caused a stronger bloom of poisonous algae, which produce a toxin responsible for neurological disorders, Higuchi said. Sickness caused by the algae blooms can cause seizures, which affected three of the dolphins found recently in Southern California.
quoting Justin Viezbicke, stranding coordinator with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hardly unsubstantiated claims as you make it.
Let's not be so quick to dismiss anything related to our poor behavior in relation to ocean toxicity and waste problem, it won't do us good on the long run!
These cyanobacteria levels are unusual--we don't have hundreds of years of records, but we certainly have never seen algae blooms happening regularly every year in so many bodies of water.
On a some what similar topic: the amount of killing and hunting (rabbits, moles, mice and other small mammals) that happens when we grow produce. Add to that the destruction of a previously thriving eco system of small mammals, insects and lizards that is caused by the vast mono crop method used by most conventional farmers. And you end up with questions about the ethics of a plant based diet (at least one that is based on our conventional methods of large scale farming).
On the surface it would seem that a diet that includes meat from free range (non feed lot) cattle would result in less death (by numbers) and less destruction of natural habitat than a 100% plant based diet (even a small organic farm practices eco system destruction to plant its non mono crops and I assume practices animal trapping/hunting?). Which maybe is fine with some vegans but I think a large percentage don’t consider this. In particular the amount of poison and traps that are used to kill small mammals to produce each pound of carrots, broccoli or other plant life.
Most of the grain grown in the USA is fed to livestock. If you are concerned about the impact of agriculture on the environment the single best thing you can do is eat lower on the food chain.
The number of small animals killed to feed one person a carnivore diet is far far more than it takes to feed that person a plant based diet.
I agree, a conventionally raised cow is given corn to the point that it would die from this diet with a few weeks by the time its slaughtered.
And corn might be the worst mono crop we have (causing the most destruction to eco systems).
I intentionally said free range (non feed lot cows) for this reason.
As far as methane, I wonder if we could focus on eating small free range mammals, such as rabbits instead. I’m not knowledgeable in what each animal out puts from a methane stand point per pound of food. But it seems it’s clear, from my limited knowledge, if we switched back to more farms leaving the eco system as is and raising free range cattle we would be killing much less animals than a plant based diet.
Free range cattle wouldn't come anywhere close to meeting the current demand for meat. People would have to get used to eating meat a lot less often and paying a lot more for it.
It takes around 7-10kg of feed to produce 1kg of meat. Eliminate that waste and we can easily feed everyone a healthy plant based diet instead.
Another factor to consider with cows is large scale cattle farming, grass fed or not, releases huge amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane gas is estimated to be 28[1] times worse for climate change than C02.
Grass fed is good and probably even healthier. But it is also considerably more expensive, and our ultimate capacity for production of grass fed is much lower than corn fed. So grass fed cannot really fully replace corn fed.
Some people see only the cuteness, but other see key species.
Top predators are a very important part of the modulation of the ecosystem and recover much more slowly than fishes or algae. Is an indicator that something is going wrong. We are also very close to then in the trofic chain so, when there is something in the fish that is killing big mammals, we have a problem also.
I've had two run-ins with basic runoff pollution, swimming in the ocean Brazil and Sri Lanka. In both cases I swam out a few meters and into a mass of garbage: diapers, plastic bags, crisp bags etc.
I remember thinking if it's happening here, it's happening everywhere.
I was reading Michael Pollan's famous "Unhappy Meals" essay the other day and I was struck by this paragraph:
"It might be argued that, at this point in history, we should simply accept that fast food is our food culture. Over time, people will get used to eating this way and our health will improve. But for natural selection to help populations adapt to the Western diet, we’d have to be prepared to let those whom it sickens die. That’s not what we’re doing. Rather, we’re turning to the health-care industry to help us “adapt.” Medicine is learning how to keep alive the people whom the Western diet is making sick. It’s gotten good at extending the lives of people with heart disease, and now it’s working on obesity and diabetes. Capitalism is itself marvelously adaptive, able to turn the problems it creates into lucrative business opportunities: diet pills, heart-bypass operations, insulin pumps, bariatric surgery. But while fast food may be good business for the health-care industry, surely the cost to society — estimated at more than $200 billion a year in diet-related health-care costs — is unsustainable."
Unfortunately, I see a lot of parallels between food, health, and nutrition and our approach to climate change, too. Every year we incur more and more costs associated with climate change. Entire cities are destroyed, thousands die, and millions more slowly become more and more sick. The costs are truly unsustainable, but the root problems are never addressed. Instead, the homes are simply rebuilt and the cycle continues. We're committing self-destruction as a species. We don't deserve to find another Earth if we can't sustain this one.
I've seen this more where I'm from, too. Our underwater ecosystem is collapsing. Their world must be like some of our smog-choked, acid rain hellscapes, if not moreso and even more acute.
I freedive and spearfish in that underwater ecosystem on a weekly basis between Malibu, Santa Monica, and Palos Verdes. It's fine, much cleaner than the wilderness around there on land.
As for the article, it's an interesting data point but who knows, there is a lot we are still learning about the ecosystem. There's clearly some strange patterns this year - warm currents have been bringing up large tuna to just off of Long Beach and that may be affecting plankton and bacterial populations, especially with the organics from the rain runoff seeding the waters. Domoic acid poisoning is a natural phenomenon but it's no joke.
How did you get in to spearfishing? I saw it in a sailing video recently and it appeals as far more interesting and time-efficient than traditional fishing. Can you recommended any media?
Through another friend in tech - it's good to have someone to show you the ropes because there is a lot of tribal knowledge. YouTube and forums are somewhat of a help but most of what I've learned is from listening at the spear shop or going on public charter trips and listening to the elders.
I heard from someone at Whole Foods yesterday that Oregon and Washington are recalling (some) Dungeness crab because of domoic acid levels -- I wonder if that is related.
According to the Oregon Department of Agriculture:
Commercial evisceration zones and orders
Oregon crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from zone K are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 11, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. Crab harvested from zones J and L are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. February 14, 2019, as a buffer zones to zone K. See the link below called Evisceration orders and recall information for details.
California crab: Crab containing viscera harvested from California waters are under an evisceration order effective 12:01 a.m. January 15, 2019, due to elevated levels of domoic acid in the crab viscera. This remains in effect until further notice.
Is it related? Looks likely, but not directly quantifiable:
Domoic acid is a naturally occurring biotoxin that does not present danger in small quantities. It becomes dangerous when it is present in large quantities. While we are uncertain of the causes of the influx of domoic acid in our oceans, scientists are researching possible causes for the increased levels. Possible contributing factors include global climate change, eutrophication from fertilizers, agricultural and urban runoff, aquaculture activity, coastal development and consequently the increased exposure to waters and foods contaminated by domoic acid.https://www.oceansoffun.org/domoic_acid_poisoning
The increasing frequency and geographic extent of toxic algal blooms along populated coastlines is generally attributed to human activitieshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996450/
1. Parsons ML, Dortch Q, Turner RE. Sedimentological evidence of an increase in Pseudo-nitzschia (Bacillariophyceae) abundance in response to coastal eutrophication. Limnol Oceanogr. 2002;47:551–558.
2. Hallegraeff GM. A review of harmful algal blooms and their apparent global increase. Phycologia. 1993;32:79–99.
