Aug 02 2009
Forget the Beach
Oh, this is just marvellous:
Ten percent of water samples at California beaches last year contained more human fecal bacteria than the state allows, according to a study released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Violations of daily maximum bacterial standards at 227 California beaches increased 4 percent from 2007 to 2008, the study found.
After Los Angeles and San Francisco, Contra Costa had the most polluted beaches with 12 percent of samples tested coming back with high bacteria.
The samples came from Keller Beach in Richmond. Alameda County beaches showed high bacteria levels in 9 percent of samples, and San Mateo County beaches showed heavy contamination in 6 percent of their samples.
“Many Californians were sickened or became ill after going to polluted beaches last year,” Michelle Mehta, an attorney with the council’s water program, said in a statement. “The problem of beach water pollution has not improved, and millions of people visiting California’s world-renowned beaches continue to be at risk.”
Although California may be famous for its surfing and swimming, the state ranked among the worst in beach water quality nationwide, coming in 22nd out of 30 coastal states.
So now not only do I squidge when the kids touch this nasty polluted water, now I have to squidge when they touch the beach too. Time to go.
HT: Jonathan
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move to Oregon! We have clean Everything
When I flew out of SF last month and looked down at the bay, I could actually see slicks of oil on the surface. It would have been pretty, the way oil reflects a rainbow of colors, had I not known what it was.
Gross is the best word to describe the SF bay, and Monterey is getting there. Sadly, this is going to increase as human populations increase. We pollute the bay or we pollute our ground water. More people = more pollution.
I’m reaching the point of just not caring anymore.