Below, the contaminated water and/or issue of hazardous waste on the beach this morning at the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain that we discussed in yesterday's report on this same blog remains unresolved. Interestingly, we received a reply message on our Twitter Account from both Shutters Hotel and Casa Del Mar Hotel today, as follows:
"the City of Santa Monica is aware of the issue and is beginning a sewage improvement project on Dec 5th."
Comment: This is good news, particularly if this sewage improvement project does in fact remove the contaminated water that sits for days unresolved in the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain outlet on the sand as shown in the photo below. In my opinion, however, there will continue to be overflow issues
and contaminated water will collect on the sand and the City will end up bulldozing the sand at the water's edge so that the contaminated water once again drains out to the ocean and no hazardous materials personnel will actually wade into the contaminated water pond to remove it. Additionally, the sewage improvement project will not solve the separate but related issue of #beachtrash along the water's edge that builds up daily from beach patrons that litter, etc., and which the City of Santa Monica continues not to hand pick and dispose of on a regular basis.
*** Video Alert ! ***
At Water's Edge: The Video
https://youtu.be/Wt_qQOzyj5A
*** Video Alert ! ***
Beauty And The Beast: The Video
https://youtu.be/v0YgwfoUDmg
Below, local wildlife along the beach adjacent to the Pico-Kenter storm drain.
Question: Does #BeachTrash also threaten the health of our coastal wildlife?
Cigarette butts, plastic, styrofoam, etc.... this continuing sad saga of uncollected #beachtrash most certainly negatively impacts the health of the local coastal wildlife. The failure of the City of Santa Monica to make sure that its landscape/sanitation dept. has staff that walk the beach and hand pick up the #beachtrash along the water's edge on a regular basis is a continuing disappointment and threat to our local environment.
Fortunately, thanks specifically to the college students in the marine biology department at Santa Monica College that hand picked up #beachtrash along the water's edge from the pier to Bay St.,
the beach just south of the pier was still fairly clean today with some new #beachtrash showing up as shown below...
And then I walked under the pier to the north side, aka, Santa Monica North, where there was additional #beachtrash uncollected by the City of Santa Monica due to the fact that no one has walked the beach along the water's edge and hand picked it up for disposal...
Below, this discarded plastic container was also observed here on the beach yesterday...
How much #beachtrash is there on the north side of the pier?... Only the shadow seems to know because no one is walking down here along the water's edge and hand picking up the #beachtrash on a regular basis...
Lifeguard Tower #14 pulled back to the middle of the beach for the winter, below...
Stunning views, eh?!... Why does the City of Santa Monica not care enough about the #beachtrash along the water's edge to make sure that it's staff is walking there and hand picking it up as the City spokesperson has said it does.... and which our regular audits shows not to be the case.
Our goal and our mission, as previously stated on several occasions, is to convince the City of Santa Monica that it's sanitation/landscape staff is neither regularly or daily walking the water's edge and hand picking up #beachtrash. Once convinced, we will continue our efforts to get the City to actually start hand picking up said #beachtrash along the water's edge along the entire length of the State Beach that the City of Santa Monica is responsible for maintaining and which, to date, the City has apparently not had the civic integrity to actually make happen on a regular basis.
Respectfully submitted,
William Maguire,
Santa Monica business owner
(All photos and videos by & Copyright William Maguire 2016.)
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