First Flush

Team Marine, a group of eco-minded students from Santa Monica High School, have been fighting tirelessly on behalf of ocean conservation. The first flush has been known to bring havoc to the coast and its inhabitants. Team Marine felt that they could not stand idly by and was determined to document this shocking event. When rain was first forecasted in Santa Monica, Team Marine was on high alert. Upon the initial rains, the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain was still backed up with sand, and Team Marine thought this would delay the first flush. Devany Garcia, a member of Team Marine, went down to monitor the storm drain on October 13, 2009, at 5 PM. The storm drain had no signs of flowing into the ocean, and Devany reported back to them confirming their prediction. However, an hour and a half later, another Team Marine member, Raphael Mawrence, discovered the unfortunate truth as he witnessed the storm drain unleash the terror of urban runoff. Overwhelmed by the unexpected happening, he called the other members stating, “The time has come!” The wind and rain were rough, the air was thick with fumes of pollution, and the water from the storm drain quickly traversed sixty yards from the storm drain output. The sand mound that had been holding back the storm water in the channel was demolished within an hour. Within thirty minutes, the rest of Team Marine was standing by Raphael’s side.
Though the night was dark, Team Marine could clearly see the inevitable pollution of the first flush before their eyes. Megan, another member of Team Marine noted, “The torrential surge of plastic that streamed from the storm drain put me in a state of shock. As we walked around the growing pool of filth, I felt shameful about society’s apathy for the environment. Hundreds of Styrofoam products and single-use plastic were resting upon a thick layer of putrid foam. Suddenly, the pool of runoff broke the sand bar next to the ocean and the pooling water started draining into the sea. The water rapidly bore a channel in the sand, giving rise to a forceful stream of water that hurled an entire trash can into crashing waves.”
Early the next morning, a few Team Marine and Marine Biology students taking part in Surfrider Foundation’s Teach and Test Program set out to check the water quality at three local beach sites. The Santa Monica Pier, the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain, and Lifeguard Station 26 were tested for Enterococcus bacteria, a bacterium common in human and animal fecal matter. The results were alarming. According to the results, each site received an F-rating, meaning that the water was unsafe for swimming. Determined to reduce the impacts of the first flush, Team Marine set out after school to have a beach cleanup. In less than an hour at the Pico-Kenter Storm Drain, the team was able to fill multiple buckets to the brim with the disgusting debris sprawled across the sand. Despite their efforts, Team Marine could only remove a minute fraction of the pollution.
The devastation of the first flush is something that we can all help prevent.
If we stand together and demand the banning of single-use plastics, such as plastic bags, plastic bottles, and Styrofoam packaging we can decrease the amount of trash that comes out of the storm drains. As we switch to using reusable bags and stainless steel water bottles, the demand on single-use plastic items will decrease, thus reducing the adverse health effects of plastics on marine life and humans. According to researchers, organisms often get entangled in plastic objects, while an increasing number of sea life ingest plastic mistaking it for natural food. Human health is also at risk when people eat seafood that has ingested plastic particles, because plastic debris absorbs marine pollutants up to 1 million times higher than the surrounding water. Every single piece of plastic that has ever entered the ocean remains there today. Plastic bottles, as well as other single use plastics, are merely thrown away rather than recycled. Americans dispose of an average of 2.5 million plastic bottles an hour. This proves just one of the many actions that display how we have fallen into a waste away society. Recycling is just the first step in lessening our impact on the environment. What society really needs is to make changes to their products and behaviors, and RETHINK their over-consumption of single-use plastic so that our planet will not continue to suffer. We are all capable of making a difference, whether big or small. Let us improve the Earth’s conditions together.
- Team Marine -