Weiss: More Stories Will Follow

As a surfer, scuba diver and Los Angeles Times reporter covering coastal and marine issues, it’s heartening to see so many people share my concerns about the future of our oceans. I want to thank all of the contributors who have joined this thoughtful and passionate discussion.

In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing about ways to ease the stress on the seas. How can we reduce the nutrient pollution pouring into the ocean from our sewage, farms and city streets? How can we restore nature’s filters and make sure there will be fish and other marine wildlife for our children and grandchildren? What should our government leaders do to address these issues? How can the United States lead by example, so that developing nations with burgeoning populations can learn from our mistakes rather than repeat them?

We welcome suggestions posted to this forum, examples of efforts that have paid dividends and innovative ideas, too. We’ll be reading them all.

— Ken Weiss

Comments

[Monica Favand Campagna]

Dear Mr. Weiss,

Echoing other posts on this board, I wanted to say THANK YOU for writing these fantastic, illuminating and very moving articles. I read them with rapt attention one after the next, and was incredibly moved and inspired to do something to inform others about these traumatic things that are happening all around us.

I run a dance and music ensemble here in LA called TRIP Dance Theater. Your articles have inspired an entire evening of work that we just completed and which will premiere next week at Unknown Theater in Hollywood called "Poisoning the Well". All of my company members have read your articles and have watched the Altered Oceans dvd as well. We've all learned so much and have been deeply affected to make changes in our own lives and to educate others.

There is info on our website - tripdance.org - about "Poisoning the Well" and some of the issues the performance highlights, which include the plastics and fertilizers entering our oceans.

I wanted to see if you would be willing to let us show a couple of clips of your fantastic dvd in our concert - to educate the audience about red tide and the jelly fish explosion in particular. We'd like to know if it would be ok to show about 3 minutes total during the performance if we credit you and give links in the program to your website and information for people to buy the dvd.

I already have links up to the articles on our site - tripdance.org - and have been telling everyone that I know about the articles.

Thank you again so much for your fantastic work.

Best wishes,
Monica Favand Campagna

[Jess Reese]

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for writing this piece and compiling these wonderful images. I am not as agast as the other people who have posted because I have long mourned our dying seas. I work at the John G. Shedd Aquarium and deliver Climate Crisis Presentations to help spread this message myself, but you are casting a wide net, educating the public. This heartens me, because through work of this sort, you are illuminating a dire crisis en masse. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

I am an avid SCUBA Diver, and Mother who one day hopes to say the wonder and sense of divinity that I feel when I dive a reef. It is wonderful pieces like this, messages like this that make me feel hopeful. Please contact me if you need any assistance what so ever in continuing this wonderful call to action. THANKS AGAIN!

[John W. Di Turo]

Thank you for your timely piece. I hope it helps to open some eyes.
I am a marine biologist who has seen the horrible environmental changes in the past 16 years. I am determined to help prevent the oceans demise. I have some unique ideas about solving some of these pollution problems. Please contact me if you are interested.

[John W. Di Turo]

I am an environmental scientist who has spent the better part of 16 years dedicated to the development of technologies that would prevent water pollution from reaching the ocean thereby shrinking the size of the dead zones. When I began my research the first documented dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico was 600 square miles. At that time, the vast majority of marine scientists and oceanographers thought the concept of a dead zone forming was preposterous, in fact at one point I was taught that the solution to pollution is dilution and that world’s oceans were too vast to have that kind of impact. I knew back then that world opinion was wrong and that someone had to do something about it. I created a list of 12 sources of the so-called untreatable “non-point source” pollution and dedicated myself to discover ways to combat every one of them. By the way, this past summer the same dead zone in the Gulf (that didn’t exist) has now become 6600 square miles and the same crisis is now worldwide.
To save the Gulf I knew I had to begin at the source. I spent 4 years in R & D in Iowa and Minnesota testing with one of the largest pork producers in the world. I developed a technology that could be used on confined feed lot waste (hog poop). Imagine creating a swimming pool, but rather than filling it with water, build a barn on top of it. Have slots in the floor and pens to raise hogs. Now imagine thousands and thousands of these farm feed lots in the Midwest all connected to the Gulf via the Mississippi River. The statistics are staggering, there is more hog manure produced in North Carolina than all the human sewage created in the State of New York and none of it is being treated. Now you have some idea of the magnitude of just one of twelve items on my list. Hogs create 4x’s the waste humans do, in fact given the opportunity of access to unlimited food and water, all they will do is eat and poop. This is not your average poop it is super concentrated (super poop), because the swimming pools are emptied only twice a year. I found situations with the super poop having a BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) reading of 167,000 mg/L. To give you some idea of scale, the average BOD of wastewater entering a wastewater treatment plant is around 500 mg/L. This stuff was so bad it melted the equipment I was using to analyze it. This super poop is tilled directly into the soil without dilution. I guess the farmers hadn’t herd about the pollution…dilution concept I was taught in school.
When it rains you can guess were it all ends up. One would think there has to be a reason that farmers use this method. Maybe super poop must be super fertilizer. The sad fact is that most of the nutrients are lost into the atmosphere before tilling (e.g. 90% Nitrogen lost), so the farmers have to add huge amounts of artificial fertilizer to compensate for the loss. Oh, yes I almost forgot, this Nitrogen is in fact not really lost, it comes back down in the form acid rain miles down the road, but I digress
To make a long story short, I developed at product in solid form, that is added directly to the waste while it is being stored. It removes the odor (the source of nutrient loss and acid rain formation) ,prevents ground water contamination and increases crop yield. The process works so well only a small quantity is needed to treat vast amounts of waste without any expensive equipment or the need for electricity.
Yet after all my efforts, my hopes were dashed when the CEO of this Pork producing company told me that he loved my technology, but he was not going to buy it. He said he wanted his own contract farmers to go out of business so he could buy their land cheep. Once his company owned it all, then he would consider using my product.
This is only an example of one of the brick walls I have slammed into over the years. I have not given up. I have started a company to commercialize what I have learned. I have dozens of technologies just as effective and I am looking for help in getting the word out.
Please contact me if you are interested. I can be reached at johndituro@aquadynamicsolutions.com

[Jenna Pelson]

How to save the seas?

Fewer humans. Why does no one say that, ever?

The first poster, above, starts in on the nostalgic privileges that he or she wants to preserve for her or his children.

Stop breeding more people! One child-familes would reduce humanity's numbers humanely and fairly rapidly. Subsidize zero-child families, not two- and more-child ones. Give tax breaks for people with the lowest energy consumption, rather than for SUVs.

The sea is all and everything. The sea is our source of life. Environmentalists are always talking about "the earth," but it's the sea that gives us all.

jenna

[Kella MAXO]

Perhaps an even better suggestion to get this crucial information out to the world would be to upload all the video packages to not just to youtube but google video,myvideo.com (germany) and dailymotion.com (france). The time is NOW.

[Brandon]

I am glad to see that the awarness for our cean is becoming greater every day, but i still feel that more of mass media needs to educate the people everywhere not only the people on the coast because i feel this is one of the biggest issues of our time. Personally i want my children to have the same expriences i have had with the oceans.

[Alex Tillson]

Thank you for creating this excellent series. I think your efforts will help get us a little closer to the tipping point where each person realizes that thier individual actions make a difference. In the end, it is the sum of each of our individual actions that have such a huge impact on this earth.

With regard to the issue of reducing nutrients in effluence, I have wondered whether introducing a step of boiling the effluence before releasing it to the ocean would help reduce nutrients. I haven't been able to find anything in my internet reading as to whether this step has been considered. I thought I'd throw this idea your way in case its helpful in your follow-up series.

[Vania Coelho]

I am an assistant professor at Dominican University of California in Marin County, CA, and I would like to use the materials produced in this series in my Environmental Issues classes.

My questions are: will these resources be always available on the internet? If not, do you have them in CDs or DVDs that could be used by educators?

Many thanks,
Vania Coelho

[Kathleen Ostridge]

As plastic absorbs toxins while in water - I would venture to say that most of the toxic loading occurs while the plastic is sitting and winding it's way through the city sewers. This process needs to be stopped before it starts.

Has Charles Moore conducted testing for toxins in plastics found in the Pacific Plastic Patch? If not, this needs to be done. Has it been determined how long plastics hold toxins they pick up? Wouldn't they emit toxins, too?

A study on the loading and unloading of toxins from plastics needs to be done.

In order to recycle these plastics, the toxins will need to be removed and dealt with. Otherwise, I doubt that they would be approved for reuse for any applications that deal with food/drink and any product that could be effected by the toxins.

Perhaps these plastics reclaimed from the pacific, can be used to formulate a new kind of asphalt - sidewalk material, mixing in used tires and other things. This would enable huge quailties to be constructively and safely used and would attach the whole process to city, county. state and federal road and highway projects.

Much of this plastic originates from streets/gutters/sewers. So, that would close the loop, so to speak.

Humboldt County, California is at latitude 40. Same as The Patch. My first job was at The Northcoast Environmental Center, in Arcata, and we started the FIRST recycling program for a city, in the world. This area, will be key in getting a Pacific Plastic Recycling program started, it needs new businesses to replace logging and fishing, has a wonderful marine lab out of Humboldt State University, and the city of Arcata is run by The Green Party.

If there are any chemists in the house that have been testing the plastics, please contact me.

Cheers

Kathleen

[Jim Slobojan]

Since I read this outstanding series by Ken Weiss I began conducting some of my own research. For example, I found that Scott's, the maker of lawn fertilizer and many herbicides & pesticides produces an organic product under the label Eco-Sense. This product is made from all natural material. However, this product is available in Canada but not the United States. Small items such as that make me believe that we really are not such the progressive country we preach to be. I look forward to reading future articles from Mr. Weiss and learning about methods for me, my family and my neighborhood to begin to make a difference.
Jim

[Stuart Smits]

Ken:
I was very impressed with the excellent series you wrote last week. The depth of analysis and comprehension of the complex issues was evident, but you put it forth in a very light and engaging manner---true journalism at its best.
Keep up the good work. After all, the enormous changes required in marine conservation can only come after the electorate is educated on the issues and the solutions.
Stuart

[Todd Cheek]

I hope the LA Times and the authors are awarded a Pulitzer for this series. Although most polls show environmental concerns running at the back of the short-list on critical issues for most people, degredation of our environment is the most urgent threat to the survival of our species and almost all others. The inexorable nature of damage from human activity to our environment is made worse by the expansion of population and the internalization of these conditions as the status quo by each new generation. You have helped to raise the bar and I hope raise the collective conciousness. Please continue your good work because we desperately need efforts such as these.

.

[John Tindall]

Dear LA Times,
Thanks you for printing this great series.
You might makes copies available to all jr high and high school science classes. It should be required reading.
Looking forward to follow up articles by Ken.

[Debby Germino]

I just wanted to say that this series of articles is one of the best stories I've read in the L.A. Tiimes. It was informative, eye opening, and thought provoking. This is a subject that we need to hear more about. We've ignored the pollution and destruction of our environment for far too long; almost to the point where we can't recover from it. The more we hear about it and read the facts about what is actually going on, the more (hopefully) we will realize that real change needs to happen...NOW. It's great to see such an in depth series on this overwhelming topic. I'll be looking for more of them in the future. Thank you for the responsible journalism.

[Isabelle Duvivier]

Incredible series. Now that you have our attention, please follow up with more articles about things people can, and are doing to address these issues. I am particularly interested in addressing human behavior and education.

From a local persective I hope you follow the progress of the IRWMP or Integrated Regional Water Management Plan being prepared for L.A. County to address water quality, water suppy and open space issues. From my perspective this is the biggest effort our region has ever taken to get a handle of our impacts and define long term solutions.

[Suzanne Duarte]

This was the most disturbing series of articles I've ever read, even though I follow environmental news closely, am an activist, and teach environmental studies. Two things struck me that might be worthwhile points to highlight in future articles, Ken. One is that all life evolved out of the ocean, and the evolutionary setbacks that have occurred in the past, and how long it took for life to recover. The other is that the ocean is the traditional, universal symbol for the unconscious. Symbolically speaking, life in the collective unconscious is being overwhelmed by the garbage we are putting into it! And it is beginning to devolve into slime. This should be a wakeup call to all of humanity. Our distraction by and preoccupation with garbage is causing the evolutionary reversal of the planet and the human psyche, psychologically speaking. Our need to wake up is getting more dire by the day.

[Patrick, LA]

Ken, many thanks to you, your collaborators and the L.A. Times for this outstanding series on the condition of our oceans. For all of the many who have posted asking about solutions to mitigating the stream of sewage and toxic run-off flowing into waterways, estuaries, and the oceans, there is an outstanding resource for information on bioremediation, water restoration research and technology at http://oceanarks.org -an internationally acclaimed non-profit bioremediation research group.

With a motto that states: "To Restore the Lands, Protect the Seas, and Inform the Earth's Stewards", OceanArks.org sole purpose is to demonstrate the ways and means to clean effluent and run-off BEFORE it is dumped into the environment. Their site provides links to other such groups who are working diligently to help clean-up the Earth‘s waters.

[Karen]

Thank you Ken, for continuing to cover this most important problem. Is there any possibility of following up on Bob Rigby's cure out of Venice High School research project? He claims to have a cure, and waiting for approval so I understand. Hopefully, you can gather some updated information on this cure.

[Lucy, LA]

Thank you Ken, for your timely article about the state of our oceans. I hope everyone reads it and thinks seriously about what we are doing to our oceans.

I will be most interested in your further articles about possible solutions. Are there ways to better treat sewage? Or not even allow it to be pumped out to sea? What about the overpopulation of the planet that is a major cause of all this? Could you do an article about that?

[Carmen, LA]

Yes, Ken! Please keep covering this extremely important topic. It is essential to bring all the issues of ocean and environmental stewardship to light to the masses. It's all about awareness. Once someone knows about the truths beneath the water's surface, there's no going back to ignorance. Thank you to you and the LA Times!

[Rick Laurenzo]

This was the most disturbing, eye-opening and inspiring series that I have ever read in the LA Times. I had no idea things were so bad. I look forward to your artilcle on ways we all can help. I hope there's time to heal our planet and its oceans. Thanks so much. Rick Laurenzo