San Pedro Debris Survey

By drew on November 12th, 2009

GPS'ing debris data on the Derek M Baylis

The Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS.org) has a great LISTSERVE – for those of you in the GIS world, a $35 membership is worth its weight in support and interesting information from the list… I sent out a note asking for volunteers in the area to come help us out for our morning survey, and Jenni Gomez, an SCGS member from Long Beach answered the call. Jenni works as a GIS specialist for the The City of Loong Beach, and she brought Rob Earle with her, who works for the Storm Water department. One of my primary interests in the marine debris work I am doing revolves around what happens when single use plastic and polystyrene leave human hands as waste, so it was a treat having Rob aboard to educate us about storms drains, and the efforts to minimize trash from flowing into the ocean through storm water system.

The Ocean Gyres, in particular the North Pacific Gyre, have gotten much attention this summer. I am certain that people need to know these giant vortexes are filing with 50 years of industrial waste, yet I am quite convinced that the “human – gyre interface” is where we need to be focusing our attention. We can’t (yet) follow all of our trash from the point of manufacture to the ocean or the landfill, but we can speculate that much of the stuff that ends up in the oceans either blows out of trash cans, or carelessly leaves human hands… either way, we are creating quite a mess, and threatening many species at all aspects of the food chain….

Plastic bag disguised as a Jellyfish

The bottom line is:

- plastic does not break down, it only breaks apart (into smaller ans smaller pieces),

- no matter what size, shape or material it is, plastic look like some living creature when it is in the water, which means,

- some other creature will eat it, or attempt to eat it, and die of entanglement or starvation.

Rob with the ubiquitous Frito Lay bag

We spent two hours surveying the east side of San Pedro Bay, which is inside the breakwater of The Port of Los Angles, and we picked up almost 400 pieces of debris… hard work, very satisfying, yet I wish it did not need to be done…

Kudos and thanks to Rob and Jenni from The City of Long Beach for helping us out!

After Rob and Jenni left, we had a regularly scheduled boat program with the staff of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium www.cabrillomarineaquarium.org/ – What a great and fun group of people! We were sort of preaching to the choir, though there was plenty of new information exchanged, and we all had a fine time sharing and creating community.