Alex Coolman
Jack Skinner doesn't worry too much about the pollution he can see
floating around Upper Newport Bay.
Sure, it's bad to have Styrofoam cups and Bic lighters bobbing on the
surface, but at least they are visible. It's fairly easy to pick up such
garbage or filter it out of the water.
What really worries the Newport Beach environmentalist, however, is the
pollution he can't see: the cocktail of chemicals that gradually flows
into the bay from the watershed and eventually settles into the mud on
the bottom, where it can remain for decades.
It's this chemical brew that, by leaching into the silt of Newport Bay,
has rendered the mud sufficiently toxic, making it a concern for the
California Coastal Commission.
The commission -- saying the flow of fertilizers, insecticides and
detergents may make it potentially dangerous to dredge where dredging was
once common -- is asking residents to comply with a series of tests
before they attempt to scoop any sand from certain areas of the bay.
For the last 20 years, the city had a blanket permit for all dredging
work in the harbor, but that permit expired last fall. City officials are
willing to comply with more stringent standards, but want to make sure
those standards are in fact doable for its harbor residents.
Although Skinner says he's concerned about the accumulation of silt in
the bay, he's also worried about the long-term effects of the chemicals
that may be in the material.
"It takes 30 years of exposure to some of these chemicals before there's
increased risk of cancer," Skinner said.
Talk to locals who take an interest in the bay and every new conversation
will raise another question about what is drifting in from upstream.
John Scholl, who works for the state Department of Fish and Game on
Shellmaker Island, worries about Diazanon, an insecticide used on many
household plants. The chemical washes down from the watershed in very
small quantities, he said, but over time it accumulates in the silt on
the bottom.
"They get buried over the years," he said. "When you dig up [material]
that was buried more than 10 or 15 years ago, you stir up the
pollutants."
Also a concern, said Dennis Kelly, professor of Marine Science at Orange
Coast College, are decades-old residues of DDT, a controversial pesticide
that was eventually banned from use in the United States in 1972.
The pesticide, Kelly said, "is a tiny particle. It tends to adhere to the
smallest natural particle," such as those in clay and silt.
"It becomes entombed," he said.
