Abstract

    The Southern California Bight (SCB) is facing a problem that must be acted upon now before it is too late. Between 1960 and 1985 the population of the SCB experienced an increase of over 100%, growing from 6 million to 13.2 million inhabitants (Dailey et al., 1993). Overpopulation of the region’s coastal areas has caused increasing amounts of pollutants to be introduced into the marine ecosystem. While over the past twenty years there has been a significant reduction in some of these pollutants, we must now shift our focus to pollutants that continue to threaten our health and our waters such as PCBs and DDT. More attention needs to be paid to reducing growing sources like non-point pollution and more societal and political action needs to be utilized in order to overcome the current constraints to sustainability. Creative options and society’s willingness to change and work together will be the answers to the question "How can we sustain the Southern California Bight?"

    Why do species go extinct? Most of the time a species will go extinct because the environment that it lives in will change around it and the species is unable to inhabit the changed environment. Sometimes a species will outgrow the carrying capacity of its environment and by doing so causes its own extinction. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to choose both of these options. By changing the environment that they live in through pollution and increasing their population in an upward, exponential trend, humans are playing a loosing poker game and do not even know it because they do not know how to read their cards and are ignorant of the rules of the game.

    The Southern California Bight begins at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County and continues south along the coast to Cabo Colnett in Baja California, Mexico. To the west it is bordered by the southward flowing California Current. The Bight not only includes over 37,000 mi² of ocean but also approximately 8,700 mi² of the adjacent coastal areas that drain into it (National Resource Council, 1990). Population in coastal regions has risen rapidly over the past 50 years especially; on average there were approximately 125 persons per square mile in 1940 living in the coastal region compared to the approximately 275 persons per square mile in 1990 (see Figure 1).

    The resources of the SCB are currently shared by over 20 million people living in the coastal area. The increase in population has lead to an increase in pollution and fishing catches from which the marine environment of the Bight has struggled to recover. We as a species have proven that we can make a difference in whether or not we destroy our environment. The improvements that have been seen since we started to better sanitize the wastewater that we dump into the ocean on a daily basis is proof. In fact, we have improved the wastewater problem so much that the problem focus is shifting from municipal wastewater to non-point pollution, a type of pollution that is much harder to control because there is no one perpetrator to point the finger at and fine. Each individual in the coastal zone is individually and collectively responsible for the non-point pollution that enters the Bight. The government cannot position itself on every street corner and in every home to make sure that we are acting in ways that are best for the environment. It is time that we as a society get up, look at our actions, and decide what is important to us. And if we decide that the marine environment that many of us live here to enjoy is not important enough to change our ways, then we must ask ourselves "Are we ready and fully understanding of the possible consequences that we may bring upon ourselves?"
PCB and DDT

    DDT and PCBs are one grouping of environmental contaminants that affect marine life in the SCB. In Palos Verdes, my home town (and now private outrage), PCBs and DDT play major roles in contributing to an unhealthy coastal region. DDT or dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, is a synthetic pesticide that is resistant to degradation while in a marine environment (Kennish, 1998). DDT has a high rate of biomagnification because of its ability to be stored in the lipids of organisms. In marine organisms DDE, a metabolic degradation product of DDT (Dailey et al., 1993), is created and passed along the food chain, accumulating in the greatest magnitude in the top carnivores of the chain. DDT attacks the central nervous system by destroying the balance of sodium and potassium within neurons, disturbing the conduction of nerve impulses (Kennish, 1998). DDT has been known to thin the eggshells of birds (ex. the brown pelican) by inhibiting carbonic anhydrase, the enzyme needed for proper shell formation. In humans, DDT can be both carcinogenic and mutagenic, partially because humans are at the top of the food chain, so by the time that a fish with DDT in it is eaten, there is a more potent amount of DDT being passed on. Exposure to sufficiently high enough concentrations can lead to hyperactivity, convulsions, paralysis, and death.

    Montrose Chemical Corporation, the world’s largest DDT manufacturing plant was once located in the SCB. Operating for approximately 35 years (1950’s-1971), Montrose dumped an estimated 1800 t of DDT into the Los Angeles County Sewer Discharge (LACSD), but the actual amount of DDT that entered the waters off Palos Verdes from White Point (the LACSD discharge point) is unknown (Dailey et al., 1993). This mass discharge of DDT led to an increased buildup of residues in the sediment off Palos Verdes, which left its mark and is still detectable today (see Figure 2).

(P.V.- Palos Verdes, CA; S.P.C.- San Pedro Cyn., CA; C.B.- Choctawhatchee Bay, FL; S.P.H.- San Pedro Harbor, CA; S.P.B.- San Pedro Bay, CA; Pt. D- Point Dume, CA; M.D.R.- Marina Del Ray, CA; L.B.- Long Beach, CA)

    PCBs as they are more commonly known are polychlorinated biphenyls (Kennish 1998). An industrial contaminant, they are a group of synthetic halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (Kennish 1998). Like DDT, PCBs are resistant to degradation and are stored in the lipids of organisms. Unlike DDT’s attack on the central nervous system, exposure to PCBs can lead to skin lesions, fin erosion, altered immune responses, and reproductive abnormalities. In humans, PCBs are suspected to be carcinogenic and cause chronic diseases such as skin lesions, and liver and reproductive problems (Kennish, 1998).

(P.V.- Palos Verdes, CA; S.D.H.- San Diego Harbor, CA; S.P.C.- San Pedro Cyn, CA; L.B.- Long Beach, CA; S.D.B.- San Diego Bay, CA)

    Even though wastewater levels of PCBs are the lowest ever and DDT levels are undetectable in the water, PCBs and DDT are still found in very high concentrations in the SCB’s sediment, for example, right off the coast of Palos Verdes (see Figures 2 and 3). This raises a great amount of concern in me as to how safe any of the fish are that are caught off the SCB’s waters. If you take a visit to the Santa Monica Pier or the Redondo Beach Pier, you will see people fishing, not just for sport, but for food. There are signs posted there warning not to eat any of the shellfish that are caught, but are the other fish really safe? A fish with PCB in it may look wrong, with fin damage and epidermal lesions, but is there any outward sign that a fish has DDT in it? From what I have found it does not appear to be so, which means that these fishers could be poisoned by society’s waste and not know it until it is too late.
Heavy Metal Pollution

    Heavy metals are another grouping of environmental contaminants that come mainly from industrialization and are resistant to degradation, highly toxic, and often will bioaccumulate. There are two groups of heavy metals:

• Transitional metals- e.g. copper, cobalt, iron, and manganese
• Metalloids- e.g. arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, selenium, and tin.

    "Effluents from the Hyperion Treatment Plant (HTP; City of Los Angeles), the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant (JWPCP; County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), County Sanitation Districts of Orange County(CSDOC), and Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant (PLWTP, San Diego) comprise 90% of municipal wastewater discharged directly to the Southern California Bight"(SCCWRP 1993-94). These four plants make up the large municipal wastewater treatment facilities in the Bight, but they are not the only wastewater treatment facilities; there are 15 smaller ones that discharge effluent into the Bight as well. These smaller facilities, while accounting "for 11% of the total volume of municipal wastewater discharged to the bight…contributed a disproportionately low share of ammonia, arsenic, copper, silver, and DDT, but they contributed most of the inputs of lead and cadmium, and a disproportionately high share of cyanide, chromium, mercury, nickel, and zinc" (SCCWRP 1993-94).

    "Matta et al. (1985) found that fish and invertebrates from the coastal waters off Los Angeles had the highest levels of DDT and the third highest levels of PCB’s (after Puget Sound and Vancouver, B.C.) along the west coast"(Dailey et al. 1993). Marine mammals accrue contaminants through the food they eat. The effects of bioaccumulation can be seen as members of marine food chains are examined for contaminant concentration levels, with the animals at the top of the food chain accruing the most contaminants.

        Accumulation in:
 

    Marine monitoring of the Southern California Bight is mainly compiled from the discharge permits allowed; nonpoint discharge sources are not formally monitored nor is information integrated throughout the various counties making up the Bight. Another disturbing reason that the SCB is polluted with toxic chemicals is directly on the heads of profit seeking corporations that dump their excess chemicals directly into the sewage system in order to avoid monetary penalties. Sewage systems were not built to deal with toxic chemicals, thus many go through the system and out into the SCB.

    According to CALPIRG’s paper "California: A Polluter’s Paradise", of the top ten companies dumping toxic waste into sewage treatment plants (STPs) in California, six of them are located within the SCB (see Figure 5). In 1995 the combined six contributed over 4,404,818 pounds of toxic chemicals into the SCB that year alone. Now as an inhabitant of the SCB myself, it never occurred to me that I spent the first 18 years of my life a mere 15 minutes away from the third largest STP polluter in the state! I once again have to stress the importance of educating the public as to the violations that are happening right under their noses and to the potential harms that these violations can cause them and their families.
Oil Pollution

    Oil pollution is a third environmental contaminant. This contaminant is both natural, in the form of natural seeps like the ones in Santa Barbara, and anthropogenic in the form of oil spills from tankers and activities in harbors. "Crude oil consists of thousands of chemical compounds, many of which are toxic to marine life" (Kennish 1998). The aliphatic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon fractions of dissolved oil are extremely toxic and have a high lipid solubility. This leads to a major consumer concern in commercially and recreationally important finfish and shellfish. Apart from that, oil pollution in the form of oil spills can simply suffocate a marine organism, leading to its death and the death of many in the surrounding area.

    The contaminants that are being found in the marine ecosystem of the Southern California Bight are mostly there because of humans putting them there, either directly or indirectly. Very little of the contamination of the SCB comes from natural sources (ex. oil seeps) (see Figure 6). Most of the contamination is a direct result of human use of the SCB as a waste sink, from runoff, and also from recreational uses like boating. Mankind is slowly learning though, that if we want to eat what is in the water and we want to play in the water ourselves, then we should not pollute the water, even if we are only concerned about our own health and not about the health of the animals living in the ocean. Think about it this way, would you raise your chickens in a hen house made with asbestos, or marinate your fish in DDT when you planned to eat them? Or would you let your children swim in a pool that had toxic chemicals in it? The answer is a simple "no", yet people do not make the connection that what they are so appalled at on a smaller scale is exactly what is being done on a larger scale in the ocean. Once viewed in the right perspective and educated with the facts, people should and will change their ways for the betterment of themselves and others.
Figure 6: Sources of Oil Pollution in Marine Environments (Kennish 1998).

    The pollution problems that are facing the Bight have their roots in an even greater problem, overpopulation. The overcrowding of the surrounding land area has led to an increase in the abuse of the land and the resources that it holds. The increase in population has led to an increase in runoff due to paving and removal of vegetation in urbanized settings and an increase in waste generated by humans. The age old question of "what to do with it" came up with the answer of dumping it into the ocean, and it is similar thinking like "out of sight, out of mind", that has led people over the years to believe that things can be dumped into the ocean and they will disappear never to been seen again. Unfortunately, these people were wrong.
Sustainability: The Means to an End

    According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the word "sustain" is defined as 1. To maintain; prolong. 2. To supply with necessities or nourishment; provide for. According to Dovers and Handmer sustainability "is the long-term and difficult goal of reaching an ecologically sustainable state"(1993) and sustainable development is one of the ways of reaching this goal. According to Goodland and Daly there are three types of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. Sustainable development, the "development without growth in through put of matter and energy beyond regenerative and absorptive capacities"(Goodland & Daly, 1996) must be used to achieve sustainability in each of these three fields. The conclusion that I draw from reading these three definitions is that sustainability, as it relates to the SCB, is a constant goal that even when reached, would still need to be maintained. A sustainable Southern California Bight would be one in which humans would continue to live and thrive and yet not disturb the ecosystems around them that support human life.

    Sustainability would mean living in a way that would enable the people to come after you to have exactly the same life as you, seeing and using the same things you once did if they chose to. In a way sustainability is like erasing your footprints. It calls for humans to act, live, and use technology to disguise the fact that we ever were in a certain place, because everything that we do seems to leave a great impact on the ecology of the area we inhabit. This is partially the fault of high population and technology. With so many people all behaving the same way, the environment is not able to handle what we are doing and regenerate back to its natural state in a normal amount of time, if at all in some areas. The medical technology that we have created has been able to override nature's system of checks and balances as far as population is concerned. That system of balances is there to protect both the environment and each species. If humans far exceed their carrying capacity for the lands they live in, the ecosystems in those lands will be destroyed. The consequences of this is somewhat paradoxically sad. The same technology that was created to save us from death and to prolong our lives will be the technology that helps to destroy our ecosystems and in turn brings death upon us. We as a species are not above the laws of nature. If we create it so that it is harder for the environment to control our population, then we must be responsible enough to control our population ourselves. In order to make up for the fact that we have not been responsible in controlling our population, we must take action to minimize the impact each one of us makes on the earth. Five and a half billion people occupy this planet and each one of us demands more than the basics for survival. If we are to envision a world in which all people have equal opportunities at the things that they want, then we must be responsible in our actions. Acting responsibly means living in a sustainable manner, and this must start at the individual and community levels in order for it to work for nations and the entire world.
Problems

    There are several problems that the Southern California Bight is facing today. Among these the key players are overpopulation, point source pollution, and non-point source pollution. Overpopulation is the cause of all the other problems, because if it was not for overpopulation, the Southern California Bight would not have to deal with the amount of pollutants that are being dumped into the oceans. Society does not seem able to demonstrate the ability to exercise a sustainable population growth, therefore we must change are behaviors from unsustainable to sustainable in order to try and make up for the pressure that we are exerting on our environment through overpopulation.

• Point source pollution, whose main force in the Southern California Bight comes from the discharges of the wastewater treatment plants has created its share of problems as well. This pollution has led to eutrophication and harmful blooms of algae. Harmful algae blooms happen when fertilizers and chemicals that are rich in nitrogen and phosphorus are deposited into the water.
• Non-point pollution, because of its nature in not being able to identify the exact source, is harder to control. Overpopulation’s demand that land be paved and developed has led to increased runoff, which goes straight into the channels and ends up in the SCB. This runoff can contain anything from oil that has leaked out of someone’s car to fertilizers that were used on someone’s grass. Every time it rains the oil, fertilizers, and anything else that was formerly on the streets or in the topsoil and was not being held down is washed into the various creeks and storm drains and is deposited in the ocean. You may say "so what, my car hardly drips oil at all and I do not use very much fertilizer on my lawn", but think of it this way next time. At first this oil may just seem like a drip here and there, but if you think of how many cars are in the Los Angeles area alone, picture 5 drips of oil per car per day, then multiply that number by 365 to discern how many oil drips a year that would be found in that area alone. Suddenly that small drip has grown to enormous proportions with the help of its friends, and that is for only part of the SCB. The residents of Orange, San Diego, Ventura, and Santa Barbara Counties have not added their share of oil to the picture. This should give a better picture as to how small things can create problems in the SCB. The same thing goes for fertilizer, the next time you and your neighbor are out spreading it around on your lawn, apply the same formula to get a better picture of the amount of possible runoff that can result from your actions.

    There are various social constraints to achieving a more sustainable Southern California Bight. Some of them are cultural in origin while others are built out of a lack of understanding for the urgency of the situation. To the people that live along the SCB, the coast is very important to them. It can provide food for some and have recreational and aesthetic value for all. Many people like to swim and surf in the ocean and would like to have it clean all the time. The problem is that many people are not educated as to exactly how the SCB is polluted and what actions they can take to help prevent this pollution. Some people do not believe that the SCB can get as polluted as it does and will continue to surf, swim, and fish even when warnings have been issued that the water is unhealthful. They are not willing to give up their lifestyle to the inconvenience of pollution. This however leads to people getting sick, whether it be from swimming in the water and coming in direct contact with the pollutants or fishing off polluted waters and eating the polluted fish. The people eating these fish either do not understand what bioaccumulation is or do not believe that they are putting themselves at risk. As well as pollution leading to health problems, the necessary closure of beaches to the public every time that pollution gets too high leads to a loss in recreation. No one wants to go to the beach and then have to sit on the shore because the water could hurt you.

    I feel the aesthetic loss is perhaps one of the saddest of all though because of the image that people hold in their minds as to how the ocean should look. A deep blue-green ocean, boats with white sails sailing along, fish and dolphins swimming along in the water, the waves gently crashing on the beach with the wind blowing towards the shore. This is the kind of image that I hold of the coast. While I cannot control the wind, when I look out to the water and see that it has turned a red-brown color and I know that it could hurt me, and fish with fin disease and other epidermal lesions wash up or are caught by fishermen, I can’t help but think that something is wrong with the world, as if I have been moved to another planet, because to me, this could not be the ocean. The saddest thing of all is the way that people deal with this problem. They either continue to surf and to fish or they just say (and I am sorry to say that I was formally one of these people) "Oh, Santa Monica beach is closed again due to pollution, but what do you expect? Let’s go to the mall today." It never occurred to me that I could do anything to help stop the pollution. The fact that certain areas of the SCB’s coast were often closed due to pollution was a fact of life and something that could not be changed and was not given much thought. Now that I know otherwise, I hold that teaching how to be a sustainable citizen should be part of everyone’s education. Children should be taught that acting in certain ways every day can help the present pollution problems. By installing sustainable behaviors in children from the start, there would not be such an uphill battle to hold onto old, unsustainable behaviors, like there is with the adults of present. With adults who have acted and behaved in certain ways their whole life, breaking these routines is much harder. Something of an incentive needs to be introduced so that changing to sustainable behaviors is important to them and thus, easier. So, in retrospect, the social constraints to sustainability are changing society’s current behaviors. The way that this can be done is through education and stressing the point that every individual can do something, but that we must act together in order to achieve and maintain this goal. It is my opinion that the social aspects of the problems in the Southern California Bight are the roots of the main problem of achieving sustainability overall. According to Goodland and Daly social sustainability can only be achieved "by systematic community participation and strong civil society"(1996). This is very true and can be applied towards much more than social sustainability. In order for the people of the SCB to achieve overall sustainability there must be strong community participation.
Political Constraints

    There is a direct connection between the political constraints, the economic constraints, and the social constraints to sustainability. Once more people understand what it is that needs to be done in order to improve the current pollution problems of the Southern California Bight they will realize that the next step is political action. Without the public showing an extreme interest in the permanent cleaning up of pollution sources, the wheels of government will not turn in that direction and neither will its pocketbook open up. There are already laws enacted, such as the Clean Water Act (CWA), which when followed, helps to decrease the amount of point source pollution. Unfortunately, there are many companies that either pay the small fine for their disobedience or even worse, continue to operate without threat from the government because the Act is not strictly enforced. If society were to continuously tell their political representatives that these behaviors were unacceptable and that the act must be better enforced and that the fines for disobedience must be higher, I believe that more would get done. If the political figures in office did not choose to listen, then upon re-election society should vote someone new into office that holds the Southern California Bight with the same importance. Instead of bureaucrats wasting funds, society could insist that both the funds from the fines collected and from funds previously allocated to upholding the CWA be used in a police like manner to watch people and companies at all times to make sure they are not polluting. This would create more jobs, give people a better reason to not openly pollute, and would scare companies into complying with the pollution laws and standards.

    While the technical constraints of pollution treatment are there, economic constraints to using the technology are more present. It may seem cheaper to do nothing now, but when the problem has gotten more out of hand it will only cost that much more to fix, if at that point it is fixable.

    Here are some options and other opportunities that may help in the fight against pollution.

• The first one is enforcing that population growth is slowed or stopped in coastal zones. This would mean participation on both societal and political levels. Possibly a law could be enacted that places a population limit for California, by each county, and maybe each city. It could state that you could move to California only if you secured permission by the state that there was room for you to move here. This law would also limit the number of houses that would be allowed to be built in each area, so that areas could retain the sense of nature that people moved to the area for in the first place. If a person already lived in the state, they would be able to move to another house, but could not keep their previous house, unless it was turned into something like a time share. This would ensure that all the houses that were allowed to be built would be used and that certain rich people could not come in and buy up the area just for themselves. I got this idea when thinking about the fact that we as a country do the same thing, setting limits on the amount of people that we let live here each year. While this is just a rough idea, I think that on the state level it would be a good one to consider.
• Another idea would be to have sewer and run-off water diverted into waste water treatment plants or specially set up sewer and run-off water treatment plants before being dumped into ocean. This would help to control for the citizens that continue to dump things down sewers that are not supposed to be dumped and also for cleaning oil and other run-off material out of the water.
• Possibly chemicals or microbes could be places in the sewers to clean some of the pollutants out and small holed grates that would be cleaned regularly could be placed over sewer entrances to keep out leaves, trash, etc.

    Cleaning up the Southern California Bight will take a considerable amount of education, money, and effort but in the long run it will all be worth it so that our shimmering coast and ocean will once again be as great as it used to be. We as a society must take action now. If we choose to continue to act in ignorance by doing nothing we will have only ourselves to blame for the downfall of mankind. The rule of the Earth is survival of the fittest. The fittest act while the others sit. The time to choose is now.

CALPIRG, "California: A Polluters Paradise", 1995

Daily, M.E., and D.J. Reish, and J.W. Anderson, editors. 1993. Ecology of the Southern California Bight. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Davies, Peter, editor. 1973. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, USA.

Dovers, Stephen R., and J.W. Handmer. 1993. Contradictions in Sustainability. Environmental Conservation 20(3): 217-222.

Kennish, Michael J. 1998. Pollution Impacts on Marine Biotic Communities, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 1998.

Goodland, R., and H.E. Daly. 1996. Environmental Sustainability: Universal and Non-Negotiable. Ecological Applications 6(4): 1002-1017.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, 1990- Graph (http://www.fws.gov/~cep/popgraph.gif)

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Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Annual Report 1993-94. Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Westminster.