california beaches contaminats

california beaches contaminats



California beaches Contaminants by human

Surfing, animal watching, bonfires, swimming, picnics, weddings are just some of the various activities that many love to do at the beach. The beaches of California are used by millions of individuals. Whether you surf the waves or use the beach for recreational purposes, they are important to all of us. There’s dangers in the ocean that many are not aware of. Every year the beaches are closed for a variety of reasons such as if the waves are too dangerous, possible microscopic enemies from bacteria too close to the beach area, and sharks, but the most overlooked reason would be ocean beach contamination. Around 20% of ocean water pollution occurs naturally (Curious). Advising the public to be aware of the contaminants that reaches our waters and acknowledging how the contaminants get to the beach is very important. When dealing with our local beaches the greatest source of contaminants comes from the storm drain run offs, human waste, and oil spills.
Starting off with the issue of storm drain runoffs, combined sewer systems are designed to carry both raw sewage urine and storm water runoffs to sewage treatment plants. During heavy rainstorms, these systems can become hydraulically overloaded and discharge a mixture of raw sewage and polluted runoff into local waterways (Beachapedia). The discharges pollute the water around the outfalls and downstream beaches. Other runoffs that come from farms, roads, and cities shows that the containments goes into the sewer system or directly into the water system. Much of the pollution comes from illegal dumping of household and industrial chemicals, automobile waste, agricultural chemicals, and fertilizer usage. According to The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA for short, they identified 67 toxic pollutants in urban runoff which accounts for 84 percent of coastal pollution (Curious). Water samples were analyzed for bacteria that indicated pollutions from animal waste,...

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