October 1999 News
Volunteer Water Testing:
We are in our fourth month of regularly-scheduled testing at designated locations. The
testing we are doing is important because the health department testing is solely focused
on sewage/bacteria. We are attempting to gauge the larger picture of the health of our
body of water. We do this by conducting chemical analysis. For instance, we are testing
parameters such as pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, ammonia nitrate and phenol presence. If
you'd like to get involved, we could use your technical or administrative help. Please
email Emiko at ekobayas@csulb.edu.
Water Quality Reporting:
The Long Beach Health Department continues to turn up foul results at a couple of
locations on our beach (at Molino & Granada Avenues). Turning the LBHD's data into a
report card grade, these sights continue to achieve "F's". We must press to find
out the source for these readings and make sure that our city is doing their due diligence
of finding the source for this pollution. The Colorado Lagoon is also a chronic problem
and is at least getting attention from the press and city officials. You can find the
latest easy-to-understand report card of water health (relevant to bacteria) at Health the
Bay's website at http://www.healthebay.org/baymap/.
Political Education Sub-committee:
Members of this group had their first meeting with a city council member which went
exceedingly well. Details are being worked out regarding how much publicity this official
is willing to go on record with. Stay tuned!
October 18, Executive Committee Meeting:
We mailed our first newsletter as the Surfrider Foundation Long Beach Chapter
Organizing Committee. If you'd like to get on this mailing list, please send us your
address. We also created a subcommittee to develope a big publicity campaign called,
"DREAM CLEAN 2000". This will be an art contest open to kids in the Long Beach
school system from K-12 and college. The assignment will be to envision our beach, the LA
River or the Los Cerritos Wetlands in a restored/revitalized way and document their vision
in their own artful way. We will exhibit the entries and involve celebrities and officials
in the judging. If you'd like to get involved in the planning, please contact Diana Mann
at DianaMann@aol.com.
Late-breaking news...
Developers are in the late stages of negotiations to steal the cruise ship from the Port of LA over to the Queen Mary complex. At first glance, this is alarming to us for two reasons. 1) The area in the vicinity of Pier J has a history of costly surge problems (any wave action causes the boat to slam into the dock causing damage to both or creating high costs to employ tug boats to pull the ship a small distance from the dock). These problems have historically been dealt with by building yet more breakwaters and groins. 2) On the whole, the cruise ship business is a "dirty" industry. These floating cities have habitually dumped their waste in our oceans, both in accordance with the law and in defiance of environmental laws. We need to take a very shrewd look at these developments.