Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
With great sponsorship from Dory Deli, ECO-Warrior, and We Are Ocean, and promotion and organization from SaveNewport, The Ben Carlson Memorial Foundation, and many others, the turn out for the beach cleanup couldn’t have been better– and couldn’t have been more needed!
At 9am, the turnout was about 75 people. Dory Deli distributed bags, gloves, and had people sign for them (ensuring a pretty accurate tally!). Over the course of the next 30-45 minutes, more than double the initial 75 showed up, bringing the total for the day to over 200 people, according to the Dory Deli management team.
After the El Nino stormset, I was particularly concerned about the Dog Beach area, as it sits on the Santa Ana River which washes out a tremendous amount of trash. As people were finding their locations, I took a ride down there with a team of 4 others, and in total we collected over 110lbs of garbage between ourselves– over 22lbs per person. Assuming that the rest of the team on the beach did even half of that, we collected over one metric ton of trash from the beach. That is a serious haul!
Trash is not only unsightly, it also poses a danger to humans, land animals, and oceanlife. Broken glass and even needles from unknown uses washed ashore, and thanks to everyones efforts, they found themselves in a container labeled “Sharps”. Seals and Sealions regularly get tangled in ropes and fishing nets which are often discarded or lost at sea, and there are always the unmentionables which find their way to our oceanfront through a variety of methods which should really be cleaned up as quickly as possible.
A huge thanks to our sponsors including Dory Deli, and to Newport councilman Tony Petros who also helped to lend a hand. Tony and I may not agree on everything– but clean beaches is something everyone can get behind! Above all, really, thanks to everyone for turning out to help. Things were a bit hectic for me there, but I did get the chance to at least briefly meet a few of you, which is always awesome, as it really makes all this work feel worth it! 🙂 So if I was brief, I apologize– thank you!!
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POST SCRIPT
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While cleaning up of the beachfront is a great idea from a perspective of trash and safety, we must also remember that the big storms wash down far more than meets the eye. Pesticides, bacteria, and some of the nastier elements of groundwash all tend to accumulate after they are washed into our bay and ocean.
OCBeachInfo.com is a great site which monitors ocean health. After a rain, most of the waters are labeled yellow– or potentially hazardous. Right now, all of Newport’s beaches are green with the exception of one routinely polluted spot right on the Newport Blvd Bridge to the Peninsula– that usually takes a few days to clear up, for reasons I am still not clear about. If anyone has any more info on this, I would love to know!
