When I first applied to the aquarium, my friend Francis and I decided they had to be an open system because they sit right on the ocean. An open system at an Aquarium means they take their water straight out of the ocean, it cycles through the aquarium, then goes right back out. The Ty Warner Sea Center in Santa Barbara has this type of system.
Upon starting work, I quickly learned that this is not the case, because the LA River flows right into the ocean here. Since LA is possibly one of the most polluted areas in the country, this is bad news for our water systems. Annie Crawley from Dive Into Your Imagination always says "Everything we do on land affects the ocean." I think the people of LA really need to learn this lesson.
As I was out on that little boat for only a half hour, I saw so many disturbing things.
1. The water building up in the back of the harbor had all of this disgusting brown stuff floating around. Whether it was broken down debris, or waste from a boats ballast, I don't know but it can't be good for the water.
2. The water further out was quite murky. Granted productive waters like those in California are not going to be clear, but this was not the healthy kind of "murky."
3. Upon exiting the harbor, we saw a group of seagulls standing on a platform. One of them was eating a styrofoam cup. After shaking it around for a bit, it fell back in the water for another unsuspecting animal to find.
4. We saw countless pieces of trash floating around as we made our way out to the breakwater (the breakwater is a big underwater wall built to protect the fleet that used to be stationed here)
5. On the way back in, we saw another seabird swimming around with a fish line in its mouth.
This all was extremely shocking to me, considering we were only out for a short period of time. It made me realize even more just how incredible Annie's trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was... to find so many tiny bits of plastic 1000 miles off the coast. We all need to learn about our watersheds and how we are affecting them with our garbage.
But what is a watershed? Princeton.edu says: "the entire geographical area drained by a river and its tributaries; an area characterized by all runoff being conveyed to the same outlet." Basically this means that a watershed is where water comes from when rain falls. We are polluting our watersheds through litter, agricultural runoff, and everything you dump into your gutter.
And all of this, no matter how far away fromt he ocean you are, eventually ends up in the ocean.
So why should we care?
1. While 70% of the planet is covered in water, only about 3% is freshwater. Our freshwater systems, like the LA River as so polluted that they completely destroy water in the ocean? That is shocking. Not only that, but we need this freshwater for ourselves- for our showers, to drink.... why are we so careless with such a small amount of fresh water?
2. Through the water cycle, the ocean provides us with water. We don't want that water to be polluted.
3. The ocean provides 50-90% of our oxygen. We need to protect something this important.
4. The ocean provides us with food, and that supply is quickly dwindling as it is through overfishing. Why kill more fish with pollution?
5. Chemicals that are made into plastic, and chemicals that are attracted to plastic in the water may build up in the tissues of animals we eat. We are polluting ourselves. We Californians are completely filled with the chemicals, PBDEs from all of the flame retardants that are required on pretty much everything we own. The level in Californians is ridiculously higher than in every other state.
6. The ocean is a source of recreation, and is beautiful and breath-taking.
So I encourage you to learn about your watershed... and those of us in LA need to change our behaviors, because the pollution in the LA River has so many negative effects.
Finally, I want to share one of my favorite videos from Annie's trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
Chelsea Rochman Discusses her Conclusions about Plastic in the Gyre
