We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We don’t call them swamps any longer. They’re ‘estuaries’ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasn’t been developed to the point where it’s lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. I’ll bet you there’s not one person surfing the river jetty who hasn’t gotten sick.
2 comments:
Hooray for the fanatical environmentalists! My significant other returned from Thanksgiving spent at Edisto Beach (I spent Thanksgiving with my own family this year, because last year was spent at his family's lake house, so I didn't get to enjoy the beach, drat!)... anyways, he comes back telling me about this beautiful new spot that the State owns (south carolina), very rustic and open to the public. Adults aren't allowed to pick up the shells, and children are limited to a quart sized amount. There are, literally, cojillions of weathered trees, many with roots exposed and many in the ocean, from the hurricanes that swept through, but it is still quite a sight to behold. Thank goodness some things are being preserved.
Hooray for that ..good to hear ..yeah, some habitats do more than what you see on the surface.
Post a Comment