This city is called Newport Beach. BEACH! Doesn't that sound like the name of a place where surfers would live, where all the citizens in this city would love and be conscious of the ocean?
Personally, I was raised by two generations of beachgoers, ocean lovers, surfers, Navy veterans, fishermen, sailors and beach bunnies. Plenty of my peers love the beach. We are the teenagers you see walking to 38th [Street], board under arm. With all these people who love the ocean, where did all the trash come from?
When I stepped out of the car after my mom dropped me off at the beach to do the river-jetty cleanup, the first intrusion on my “beautiful ocean” image was the smell. Since when does the ocean, with its white-crested waves and wonderful inhabitants, smell like something died?
My answer: since the people of Southern California killed it.
—Gilley Bradley
When we arrived, we were absolutely disgusted. What I saw was trash on the beach, trash on the rocks, and trash floating in the water. My group frantically chased bobbing oil bottles and other non-biodegradable objects with sticks, trying to get them out of the toxic water before they got thrown into the raging waves, never to be seen again.
In short: when it rains, we get trash all the way from Big Bear on down that gets dumped in our beloved ocean. This is our playground, and we need something to be done about this. Please help.
—Vanessa Barnes
The most disturbing thing happened: we found a TV floating by. What in the name of God are you people thinking? How sick are you? What possessed this person to throw out a TV into the ocean? What TV shows do fish watch?
If trash is thrown on the street, it goes to the ocean. If trash is thrown in a park, it goes into the ocean. Every person from Big Bear to Newport Beach who throws trash on the ground should know that most of it ends up in my back yard. It may be gone the next day for you, but I deal with it every time I walk out my door!
—James Hamilton
The beach cleanup was disgusting! People around here are pigs! Why can't people use trash cans instead of the freeways?
I am an exchange student from Denmark, and when we hear about California, it's sunshine, nice, clean beaches and surfers. But it is sad that it has to be that way with the ocean, and it is so polluted.
Think about the environment. We can still save the Earth!
—Christian Pederson
I'm a local surfer at Newport, and I'll speak for a lot of local surfers: when it rains, trash is collected in the street, and it washes down to the storm drains, out to the river and then pollutes the ocean.
Look at some aerial views of Newport jetties, and you can see this huge current of chocolate water that comes out the river mouth and down the coast. Many of my friends get sick—not just a little cough or earache but barf, and they have to stay in bed for a couple of weeks. It's just gross.
—Brandon of Team F Street
Obviously, the system does not work. I'm originally from Chicago, and the way things got done there were a few people would lose their knees and the changes were miraculously made.
I'm not in favor of this California New Age lawyer bullshit. I'm more for the left-wing Greenpeacers, for instance, sinking whaling ships and blowing [up] bad factories. It's someone's theory: a few have to die in order for the rest to survive.
Love and peace,
—Matthew Wise
