A walk around Santa Monica Bay and for that matter around most coastlines, turns up more than a fair share of trash. Compared to most other countries in the world our waters may be cleaner, but they sure aren’t clean enough. In recent years water quality and water studies have focused on these bay areas, shallow waters and waters close to shore, but enter the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has just finished an interesting deep water survey off the coast of California.
Using a small two-man submersible the team completed more than 300 dives between the protected Monterey Bay sanctuary and the Port of Long Beach, several hundred miles to the South. Reaching depths of around 11-hundred feet, trash can be found all along California’s golden coastline and even in the deep waters of more remote areas. Of course more trash is obviously found near harbors, rivers and other spillways, but finding a kitchen sink for example in the deep and nowhere near a harbor was unexpected.
Small items like bottles, plastics and even buckets were what was expected to be found, but how about Christmas lights, tires or even a huge spool of thick wire? It can all be seen on the underwater video, as can unexploded large military shells just resting on the ocean floor. Also old fishing debris and fish traps, like the prawn trap in the picture, is still catching crabs and thus killing marine life.
Scientists say much of this trash has already been converted into makeshift reefs and small homes for fish and other marine life, like an octopus using a bucket for an example. While that may not be so harmless, there are other items that may be seeping oil, or as they decay, seeping harmful chemicals into our seas harming us and sea life nearby.
Removing this stuff can actually be even more dangerous than if it was just left there. First, getting it out of the deep waters can be almost impossible, and second, the cleanup could tear up the seabed and kill more marine life in the process. As one person explains, it is a doubled edged sword…you lose either way in some cases.
The only solution is to stop dumping. Sure some of it has been there for years and came before laws and people’s actions changed, but other stuff gets washed into the water during storms, or as city areas get “cleaned”. It may seem harmless, but it all builds up and not just at the shoreline, or on the waters surface as we once thought.
What is scary to me…we are relatively clean as compared to the many waters I have seen around the globe. Other countries use the water as a consistent dump, as we once did. I cannot imagine what might be found if the sub was sent off into some of those deep waters.