California can clean up nine of the state’s most polluted waterways if state and regional officials find the political will, according to a Feb. 2 report by Environment California Research & Policy Center.

The report examined the sorry state of Santa Monica Bay, Humboldt Bay, San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin River, the Klamath River, Clear Lake, Eagle Lake and Lake Tahoe, each of which is suffering from or threatened by the effects of pollution, overuse or both.

Under a 1997 federal policy and several court orders, California’s state and regional water authority officials are required to come up with cleanup plans to restore these waters to health. Yet so far, these plans have been woefully inadequate.

Assemblyman Paul Koretz (West Hollywood), Senator Wesley Chesbro (Arcata), and local environmentalists joined Sujatha Jahagirdar, chief author of the report, at a press conference held to announce the report’s findings.

“If our government finds the will, we can make Santa Monica Bay safe for swimming throughout the year, return salmon to the San Joaquin, and protect the clarity of Lake Tahoe,” said Sujatha Jahagirdar, chief author of the report. She called on officials to:

• require dramatic reductions in new pollution, such as agricultural and stormwater runoff, reaching our largest waterways;

• establish a renewed California Superfund program to clean up existing toxic contamination, and require polluting industries to pay for it;

• compel dam operators to allow river flows sufficient to maintain healthy waterways; and

• increase funding for habitat restoration.The report went on to detail how to achieve these goals.

For the full text, click here.

Shelter Island Yacht Basin: A success story

The Shelter Island Yacht Basin is the gateway to the Port of San Diego. The waters of the island are home of the region’s yachting and sportfishing industry. Boats have made the basin famous; they are also responsible for the pollution of its waters with toxic copper contamination.

In extremely small concentrations, copper can poison small animals like fish, clams and starfish. This compound is added to paint and used to coat the bottoms of many boats in the marina where it eventually leaks into its surrounding waters.

Testing completed in 2000 documented copper concentrations 2-3 times higher than federal safety standards to protect marine life. Studies estimated that 98 percent of this pollution comes from the paint.

In order to clean up the copper pollution, in 2005 the San Diego Regional Water Board required boat-owners in the marina to stop using copper-containing paint and switch to non-toxic alternatives within 15 years.

This strong cleanup plan was the first in California to require private boat owners to adopt specific copper pollution reduction measures and provides a good example for other boards to follow.

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