image credit: sub-urban.com (Flickr CC)

Photographer and urban historian Steve Duncan explores and documents hidden aspects of urbanization and industrialization, from disused missile silos in the United States to the archaeology of Ancient Rome.

In a series for National Geographic, Duncan investigates urban underground rivers. These rivers are not natural phenomena, like some subterranean waterways that run through cave systems, but rather the result of human engineering. For purposes of urban development, for hundreds of years mankind has changed the courses of rivers and streams, covering them up and forcing them underground.

Most of the rivers examined in the series are in New York and London, those iconic urban centers of the West. New York is the more completely urban of the two, a result of extensive and rapid urbanization, while London developed and grew more ‘organically’, since the times of Roman occupation.

Industrialization and/or urbanization may benefit in some ways by forcing these waterways underground, but there is an environmental, and therefore human, cost to consider.

[…] what happens to once-thriving freshwater ecosystems when the rivers they depend on are entombed in sewer pipes beneath layers of concrete and soil? Few species can make the transition to subterranean living. Ironically, it was often rivers and streams that attracted people in the first place, but those very sources of life can fall victim to the expanding concrete jungle.

–National Geographic

Check out the National Geographic series on underground rivers and Steve Duncan’s homepage for more.

image credit: International Rivers (Flickr CC)

Today on Facebook, I’ve noticed a lot of posts with the picture of Chief Raoni, an indigenous Brazilian tribal leader, apparently crying after being informed of a decision by Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff to allow the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rain forest.

The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam would be the 3^rd largest hydroelectric project of its kind in the world. Though touted – and not without reason – as a ‘green’ energy project (and big money maker), the environmental and human costs of the dam’s production would be significant.

To construct the plant on the Amazon’s Xingu River means disrupting the lives of tens of thousands indigenous people and harming the Earth’s largest tropical rain forest, according to indigenous inhabitants and environmental activists.

The latest development is that a judge in Brazil has just blocked any construction on the river that might interfere with the flow of the Xingu and its fish stocks.

Read more on that story from BBC News.

How this decision will affect the future of the Belo Monte hydroelectric project is unclear. My guess is that development and big money will win out – it always does. The less pessimistic part of me says that this whole controversy is bringing more attention to environmental and conservation issues and the plight of Brazil’s indigenous peoples.

For another harrowing look at what it means to be an activist on the front lines of Brazil’s environmental battlefield, see the following article in the Guardian:

Death in the Amazon: Brazil accused of protecting trees but not its people

image © NRDC/ Julia Bovey (Flickr CC: nrdc_media)

Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Puma, Calvin Klein, Converse, Cortefiel, H&M and Lacoste are among the global megabrands named in a new Greenpeace report on hazardous river pollution by the garment industry in China.

Since 1995 China has been the world’s largest exporter of textiles, attracting Western and Japanese brands to manufacture there due to cheap labor and lax regulations.

Even when major international brands have self-imposed regulations on how their garments are produced, such rules are harder to monitor when outsourced to firms in other countries.

Youngor Group, the Chinese company linked to the international firms, uses chemical dyes and water treatment processes that pollute China’s major rivers with toxic chemicals. These chemicals have been linked to liver problems, low sperm count in men and the feminization of fish. High levels of alkaline and heavy metals have also been found in many Chinese rivers used in the textile industry.

Hong Kong-based Greenpeace campaigners claim that there are hundreds of similar textile suppliers in China.

However, H&M, Nike, Converse, Adidas, Puma and Cortefiel all state that their manufacturing relationship with Youngor does not utilize water treatment.

Read more on the story on the BBC and Guardian websites and see the following video report from NTD TV for more.

Greenpeace Reports Textile Industry Pollutes… by NTDTV

photo by EFE/Gyoergy Varga (Globovisión, Flickr CC)

Today Hungary’s toxic sludge leak reached the Danube, Europe’s second longest river, possibly threatening Serbia, Croatia and Romania, though officials believe PH levels in the Danube are now safe.

On Monday a reservoir at an aluminum plant broke, releasing torrents of poisonous red sludge into an area 160 km west of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, killing 4 people, injuring 120 and prompting the evacuation of 250 residents.

According to a CNN report the reservoir has since been repaired and the leak of halted, yet the sludge already leaked into the area still poses a danger.

The spill has been declared an “ecological tragedy” by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Though no immediate danger has been observed in the Danube, PH levels in the Raba River are still dangerous and the Marcal River, a tributary of the Danube near the aluminum plant and into which the sludge initially entered, has been ecologically devastated by the spill.

For more on the story see the following reports:

Channel 4 News – Toxic sludge reaches the Danube

BBC News – Hungarian chemical sludge spill ‘threatens Danube’

Photo by Adam Stanhope (astanhope on Flickr CC)

A tidal bore is when waves of water rush through a narrow passage against the natural current of a body of water. Tidal bores are actually tidal waves, which are often mistakenly confused with tsunamis.

Sometimes the phenomena of seawater being funneled through a river mouth can be quite spectacular, such as the annual tidal bore in China’s Qiantang River.

From ITN News:

Each year, just after the mid-Autumn festival, when the moon is at its fullest, a huge waves rolls along the wide mouth of the Qiantang near Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.

Watch this dramatic video footage of a tidal bore at the mouth of the Qiantang River in China via ITN (its even got mannequins being knocked over by giant waves):

For more on the story see the following article from New Zealand’s 3 News:

Bizarre, beautiful, dangerous waves in China

This meant that four million people discharged their waste into septic tanks, whose contents overflowed city storm sewers and contaminated the water supply. Since the city is so close to the Tietê’s headwaters, this sewage concentrated, mixing with the existing pollution and causing floating foams and strong odours in many parts of the river.

Public outcry over the situation reached a peak in 1992, when over a million signatures were gathered in protest of the poor water quality. In response to the campaign, which also involved strong support from the Brazilian press, the state government of Sao Paulo created the massive Tietê Project.

The Tietê is still polluted.

image credit: Greenpeace

Xintang, China is home to some 15,000 textile factories which produce 200 million pairs of blue jeans every year. The wastewater from these factories turns local rivers an unnatural shade of blue.

Residents of Xintang complain of health problems such as birth defects, breathing difficulties and skin rashes, but no serious studies have been conducted to link health maladies to pollutants from the textile industry.

Meanwhile, the cotton industry in India is being blamed for health problems linked to the toxic pesticide endosulfan. Pesticides are also believed to cause children’s hair to turn grey. But pesticides and cotton are huge industries in India, and under pressure from industry lobbyists, the government is reluctant to enact any bans.

See the following France24 video report for more:

Your clothes true colors

Additional resources:

CNN ­– China’s famed Pearl River under denim threat

Outlook India – Poison Earth

Greenpeace – Poisoning the Pearl (PDF)

The circulation of groundwater  in Rome is being threatened by great transformations in natural physiographic systems completely upset by great peripheral urban settlements. Rome is supplied by springs located several hundred km’s from the city.

Local sources contribute marginally to the supply, such as the Acqua Vergine Spring and some other mineral water springs.

The groundwater quality is consistently damaged by extensive urban development, characterised by large new districts developed without respect to regulations (average dimension of thousands of inhabitants), and by the excessive quantity of wells connecting upper water tables that are often polluted with the deep water tables, which are generally non-polluted.

In about 53% of wells, E coli bacteria were found, while the percentage drops to 16% for the deepest wells (more than 100 m deep). The disposal of effluent waters from these districts, made by uncontrolled septic tanks, leads to soil pollution and leakage in the underlying water tables.

The surface waters shaped in geological areas in the roman countryside are landscapes of great value, in some parts with large agricultural flood plains, in others with narrow gorges. These create the dense hydrographical network of the tributaries of the Tiber and Aniene Rivers. The rivers and streams in Roman territory have a very variable discharge. In the case of the Tiber River, this is not only due to the characteristics of the river and its watershed, but also to the dams built upstream mainly for production of hydroelectric power, and to the water intakes from the river, mainly for irrigation, as well as from springs located in the watershed.

Some of the tributary streams of the Tiber and Aniene Rivers are completely dry during drought periods, while others have a consistent discharge during all seasons. The water intakes for different uses (agricultural, industrial, households) produced a general degradation of river ecosystems.

The hydrological network is the receptor of seventy-one public sewers, which were not previously treated by the treatment plants located in the territory of the city. The effluents brought by those sewers correspond to about 500,000 inhabitants. This fact leads to an organic pollution, characterised by the consistent presence of E coli bacteria, high values of BOD, and low values of DO. Moreover, the same water bodies collect about 1316 private sewers, surveyed by the province of Rome, which was instituted by the National Law 319/76, the law dealing with the control of water quality. During the surveys made by the province, a significant quantity of unauthorised sewers was detected.

Concerning the vulnerability of river ecosystems due to low discharges in dry periods, studies are ongoing to define criteria and methods for managing the river in such periods of minimum flow and determining a minimum standard of water quality and biological function.

There is no problem of a shortage of drinking water for the territory of the city of Rome because of the abundant resources. Nevertheless, it is necessary to diminish water consumption in order to achieve the result of sustainable water use; in fact, in the city of Rome, the per capita/per day consumption is about 450l, one of the highest in Europe.

There is a lack of good practice of water re-use, due to the quantity of available resources; it would be better to develop it in order to solve, with this type of low-quality water, the demand for non-drinkable water, such as water for the irrigation of public gardens, for industry, for representative fountains, particularly in dry seasons typical of the Mediterranean climate. The goal for water quality is to reach a given biological quality class and to respect the limitations established in the rules and regulations on aquatic life.

photo credit: Caja Mediterráneo (Flickr CC)

Two freshwater dolphins were recently rescued from a Bolivian river after being trapped there for months due to low water levels.

The smallish dolphins weigh between 30 and 40 kilos (66-88 pounds) each and were among a group of nine river dolphins which have been stranded in a Rio Grande tributary for over a month. The rescue operation is ongoing.

From an Associated Press report:

The two dolphins were caught in nets and brought to shore. They were put in padded, water-filled aluminum containers and driven on all-terrain vehicles about two miles downstream, where they were put in a pen in deeper water.

The low water levels in the river are the result of a drought in Bolivia that has resulted in a massive plague of forest fires.

According to the FAO, Bolivia is also threatened by food crisis, resulting from climate change.

From a CRI English report:

FAO coordinator Einstein Tejada said one fifth of Bolivia’s territory now suffer from the effects of climate change, causing food prices to rise.

Check out this ITN News video report on the river dolphin rescue in Bolivia – they’re very cute!

Dolphins rescued from low level river in Bolivia

In other cute animal news, a macaque in Bali, Indonesia has adopted a stray kitten. See photos here.

photo by Time Keegan (suburbanbloke on Flickr CC)

The mismanagement of irrigation, compounded by drought and a drop in commodity prices, has spelled disaster for Australia’s most important agricultural region.

The waters of the Darling River and the massive Murray irrigate a region that produces almost half of Australia’s fresh produce. But the worst drought in over 100 years has plunged the Murray-Darling Basin into crisis causing economic hardship and many farmers to pack up and leave.

Australian climate scientists see the country as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change and the Murray-Darling Basin as a ground zero for global warming. Climate change advisors to Australia’s government have warned that agricultural production in the basin could fall by up to 92% by 2100.

According to the country’s Department of Climate Change, global warming will trigger more frequent and severe droughts, as well as more devastating bushfires, cyclones and floods. The government’s main scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, says there is growing evidence that lower rainfall in south-eastern Australia is linked to global climate change.

–Kathy Marks, Independent

The regions lakes and lagoons have also suffered from increased salinity, affecting fish and other marine life. This has had an obvious effect on the local fishing industry.

For more on the story, including how Australian politicians are proposing to alleviate the country’s environmental problems while staying largely silent on the unpopular issue of climate change, see the following article by Kathy Marks in the Independent:

On the front line of climate change

photo by NASA (public domain)

An underwater river that dwarfs the Thames has been discovered in the Black Sea.

Europe’s giant inland sea contains currents that behave much like rivers do on land. Scientists from the University of Leeds explored these never seen before currents with a robotic submarine. The currents are created by salt water flowing into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean through the Bosporus Strait.

These currents may provide vital nutrients to sustain sea life that exists far from the nutrient-rich waters of the sea that lie close to land.

It flows down the sea shelf and out into the abyssal plain much like a river on land. The abyssal plains of our oceans are like the deserts of the marine world, but these channels can deliver nutrients and ingredients needed for life out over these deserts.

–Dr Dan Parsons, Leeds University School or Earth and Environment.

One of the largest known channels – believed to be formed by currents or underwater rivers of this kind – is located off of Brazil’s coast, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic. The undersea river in the Black Sea, however, is the only one found to be still flowing.

Read more on this story in the following article in the Telegraph:

Undersea river discovered flowing on sea bed

Additional resources:

Leeds University School of Earth and Environment

Russia’s Amur River; photo by paukrus (Flickr Creative Commons)

China’s worst flooding in ten years has resulted in widespread problems including over 1,250 people dead or missing, thousands of homes destroyed and billions of euros in damage to infrastructure.

One of the latest worries is that around 7,000 barrels, some containing toxic chemicals, were swept into the Songhua River on Wednesday. Authorities in China claim that nearly 3,000 have been recovered, but whether the barrels were empty or full is unclear.

From a BBC News report:

It is a source of drinking-water for several million people and is being tested for possible contamination, but officials have said there is no sign that the chemicals have leaked into the water.

The Songhua is a major tributary to Russia’s Amur River. Russian authorities and media have expressed concerns that the toxic contents of the barrels could poison Russia’s drinking water.

From a Russia Today report:

Moscow is concerned about the possible consequences should the toxic material cross the border. But the Chinese side has said the authorities are taking all necessary measures, with several teams engaged in collecting barrels along the Songhuajiang river, Russia’s Emergency Ministry said.

China has constructed 8 barriers to stop the barrels from reaching Russian waters, but even if only a few barrels leak the environmental impact could be severe. Or if some barrels remain unrecovered, they could leak into the water sometime in the future.

Additional resources:

Greenpeace – Huge chemical spill in China

Pravda – Tons of Toxic Chemicals Flow from China to Russia

photo by El_Enigma (Flickr Creative Commons)

It was only three months ago that southern China was suffering from its worst drought in living memory. Now the heaviest rains in over a decade are causing floods, mudslides and other destruction there, as well as threatening the integrity of the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Hubei province.

According to a BBC report, Chinese authorities have stated that the recent flooding left 823 people dead and 437 missing, the latest count including 37 deaths after a bridge collapsed in Henan province and a further 21 who are feared dead due to mudslides in Sichuan province.

From a separate BBC report:

Recent bad weather has killed 1,250 people in China, government officials say. The economic losses across the country are estimated to be more than $22bn (£14bn).

The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest hydroelectric project, but its recent water flow has reached just 10% under the dam’s maximum capacity.

From an Associated Press report:

Thousands of workers sandbagged riverbanks and checked reservoirs in Wuhan city in central Hubei province in preparation for potential floods expected to flow from the swollen Yangtze and Han rivers, an official with the Yangtze water resources commission said. “Right now the Han river in Hubei province is on the verge of breaching warning levels,” said the official, who gave his name as Zhang.

China’s monsoon rains usually slow in August, but whether this turns out to be the case this year is impossible to accurately predict.

Graham Land

photo credit: Greenpeace USA 2010

Yesterday the United States experienced two more oil spills: One in the Gulf of Mexico, the other in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

A tug boat, which was pushing a barge, ran into an abandoned well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday morning, causing gas and oil to spew 100ft (30m) into the air.

The well is located in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, some 65 miles (105km) south of New Orleans. Barataria Bay is an ecologically rich wetlands and fishing area that has been unused since the Deepwater Horizon spill began on April 10^th. This is at least the third oil leak in the Gulf area since the BP disaster.

From a report in the Telegraph:

Admiral Thad Allen, the US Coast Guard chief, said the oil platform was surrounded by a sheen and a vapour that was probably a combination of oil and gas spewing from the well.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on Monday a pipeline broke in the US state of Michigan, spilling some 877,000 gallons (19,500 barrels) of oil into a creek that feeds into the Kalamazoo River, covering birds, fish and other local wildlife in crude.

From an AP report:

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm toured the area by helicopter Tuesday night and said she wasn’t satisfied with the response to the spill. The leak in the 30-inch pipeline, which was built in 1969 and carries about 8 million gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario, was detected early Monday.

On Tuesday Governor Granholm declared a state of disaster in response to the leak.

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Associated Press – Michigan: 800,000 Gallons of Oil Spill After Pipe Breaks

photo by Fred Dawson (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Only in Britain?

In what may be one of the biggest wildlife relocation projects ever, some 300 water voles; 350 great crested newts and 30,000 smooth newts, along with thousands of snakes and lizards, are being moved to facilitate the construction of a deep-sea container port on the Thames River on the eastern outskirts of London. The port project, named London Gateway, is the first of its kind in the UK and is owned by the company DP World. In total, over 150,000 wild animals are to be relocated for the river port project.

From an article in the Independent:

It took almost eight months and more than 500 traps to capture the hundreds of water voles on the DP Gateway site. They were caught as they stepped into the tunnelled boxes looking for food and bedding. They were then held in the traps until released by an ecologist on the site.

Water voles, an important source of food for many larger animals, are endangered in Britain – their numbers have already been reduced by 90% during the past 30 years. Their fate is blamed on the North American mink, an invasive species.

Meanwhile, the Thames is also the site of the first large-scale desalinization plant for drinking water in the UK.

Despite southeast England’s wet weather, the region experiences less rainfall per person than the dry metropolises of Istanbul, Dallas or Sydney. Climate change, which increases the likelihood of dry summers, could strain water supplies in London.

From a report in the Guardian:

Thames Water has spent £250m building the plant and pipes, and has said that the equipment will only be turned on at times of drought, when it can supply up to 1 million people.

Opponents of the plant claim that it will use too much energy and that water saving measures are a better option. Thames Water has countered this by stating that the plant will be fully powered by biofuel.

It has been speculated that the plant could someday be connected to a nearby sewage plant to create recycled water, which could be a hard sell to consumers.

‘This water tastes familiar. I think I already drank this last week!’

by Graham Land

photo by bazylek100 (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Flooding has continued in central and Eastern Europe this weekend, with some 5,000 people evacuating their homes in Poland and western Russia, according to a video report from NBC’s Today Show. Conditions are particularly bad in several Siberian villages due to ice damming up a river.

According to a report from Deutsche Welle, the death toll in Poland reached 12 this Saturday.

Barriers in Warsaw were holding up Friday evening, although the capital saw water levels reaching 7.74 meters (25.4 feet) on Saturday – just short of the eight-meter mark when authorities must prepare emergency services.

–Deutsche Welle

German authorities expect the flooding to reach its peak in Germany on Wednesday or Thursday this week. Cities and towns on the German-Polish border have already experienced floodwaters from the Oder river.

For more information, see this report with accompanying video from Euronews. Also watch the below ‘no comment’ footage, also from Euronews.

Euronews – Floods in Poland

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

TheNews.pl – Floods inundate Polish cities

James Cameron at a press conference to stop Belo Monte Dam; photo from International Rivers (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Plans for the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon have experienced some recent setbacks in the form of back and forth legal action as well as controversy over indigenous rights and environmental issues. As of Friday, however, bids for construction contracts are again set to move forward on the previously planned date of April 20th.

The Belo Monte dam project, set to be located on the Amazon’s Xingu River, will be the world’s third largest hydroelectric plant of its kind. It is part of a Brazilian government initiative to fuel economic expansion and recovery while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

An article in the New York Times states that Brazil uses hydroelectric power for over 80% of its energy needs. The US Energy Information Administration, puts the amount at 36% – a far smaller, but still a significant share.

Critics claim the Belo Monte project will force native Amazonian tribes from their homelands and result in environmental damage to one of the world’s most important ecosystems.

To build Belo Monte, builders would have to excavate two huge channels larger than the Panama Canal to divert water from the main dam to the power plant. The reservoir would flood more than 160 square miles of forest while drying up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, displacing more than 20,000 people, many from indigenous communities, according to non-governmental groups citing government figures.

–New York Times

Celebrities have leant their voices to the cause to stop the construction of the Belo Monte dam. Notably, Sting – a longtime proponent of the rights of the Brazilian Amazon’s indigenous peoples – and more recently, Avatar director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver.

From an article in the Guardian:

Until last month Cameron had never been to the Brazilian Amazon, home to the world’s greatest tropical rainforest. Now, however, he has become the figurehead of an international campaign against Amazon destruction and specifically the multibillion-dollar Belo Monte hydroelectric dam project, which many of the Xingu region’s indigenous residents believe will wreak havoc in communities, flooding land in some places, drying up rivers in others and triggering an influx of workers, prostitution and disease.

Some Brazilian press articles have characterized Cameron’s criticism of the Brazilian government’s plans as ‘colonialist’, which is a bit ironic considering the nature of the hydroelectric project in relation to native Amazonians. Indeed, Cameron likens what is happening now in Brazil to the US government’s treatment of Native Americans in the 1800s – something that inspired him to make the film Avatar.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

BBC News: Judge allows start of bids on controversial Brazil dam

photo by Chmouel Boudjnah (source: Wikimedia Commons)

One of the world’s major rivers, the Mekong flows through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is now at a 50 year low in parts of Thailand and Laos, and looks more like a desert in some places.

The Thai government has attributed some blame to China for the drying up of the Mekong, due to their use of hydroelectric power stations on the river. China denies this, claiming that the drought is a natural phenomenon.

According to an article in the New York Times there is ‘firm scientific evidence’ to support China’s claims. But perceptions in some Southeast Asian countries are hard to change when it comes to their large and powerful neighbor – and this is not completely without reason.

From the Times

By one recent count, there are more than 80 hydropower projects in various stages of preparation and construction for the Mekong and its tributaries.

By contrast, the government in Cambodia accepts China’s stance – and also billions of dollars in aid.

For more, check out this pair of video reports from Al Jazeera English:

Cambodian river dries up

China rejects Mekong drying blame

by Graham Land

Citarum River c. 1920-1935, photo by Georg Friedrich Johannes Bley (source: Tropenmuseum)

The Citarum River in West Java, Indonesia is one of the most toxic waterways in the world. The river is choked with industrial pollutants, garbage and sewage – yet some 30 million people depend on its waters. Villagers who live near the Citarum have no choice but to use the toxic river water for bathing and drinking. Though they boil it to kill bacteria before drinking, poisonous heavy metals and chemicals remain.

Scavenging for trash and recyclables has replaced the once plentiful fishing in parts of the river. Furthermore, extensive logging and farming are contributing to flood conditions in near its banks. If that wasn’t bad enough, the corrosive and muddy qualities of the Citarum’s water are damaging the turbines in Java’s largest power generator, a hydroelectric plant.

From a CNN Eco Solutions report:

But it’s not just the factories using the Citarum as a dumping ground; the community effectively uses it as an open sewer. As we walk through the village, children squat over canals and defecate directly into the water. Any garbage is thrown in the waterway or dumped on the side of the riverbank.

CNN – Indonesia’s dirty river

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is investing $500 million over the next 15 years in a project to clean up the Citarum and help its dependent communities.
Flooding of the river is currently affecting some 30,000 people in Karawang – west of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta – according to an article in the Jakarta Post.

For more information, check out this Al Jazeera English report on the crisis of untreated industrial effluent, domestic waste and soil erosion in and around the Citarum:

Al Jazeera English – Indonesia’s river or rubbish

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Guardian (pictures) – Pollution in the Citarum river, Indonesia

—

Lead image source: deputy-dog.com

photo by luxomedia (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

A series of rainstorms in Southern California have resulted in debris-lined beaches strewn with ‘mangled shopping carts, bicycle tires, tennis shoes and thousands of plastic cups and bottles’, the Los Angeles Times reports. Beaches in LA and Orange County were particularly hard hit, especially those located near river mouths.

Stormy weather can cause refuse to gather in waterways such as the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers, which is then deposited on beaches. Since this is a common and regular occurrence in Southern California, many residents are practical and take the trash in stride. Surfers still surf and typically eco-minded Californians – such as the organization Save Our Beach – engage their sunny dispositions in cleanup activities.

After rainstorms, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health cautions people to stay away from ocean waters near storm drains, creeks and rivers to avoid bacteria and chemicals that may have contaminated the area.

–Los Angeles Times

Another article from the Associated Press further details California’s winter weather woes. Besides mountains of metal shopping carts, plastic dolls and other weird waste on SoCal beaches, the storms have brought mudslides, snowdrifts and tornado warnings further afield. In some instances hazardous waste makes cleanup too hot to handle, like on parts Imperial Beach near San Diego, which is close to the Tijuana River.

“Even if they do have gloves and masks, it’s too dangerous,” Dan Murphy, of Surfrider, said of the beach volunteers. “Whatever the trash is on the beach, it’s been flowing in the sewage and it’s covered with the stuff.”

–Associated Press

Check out beachcleanup.org for plenty of information and statistics about beach and ocean trash, how it gets there, its effects on environmental and human health, and what can be done about it.

by Graham Land