We Are All in the Plume

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Editor,

Thanks to the Indy’s reporting last week, we now know Heal the Bay doesn’t go to the beach. Heal the Bay simply compiles reports from Orange County Public Works, which ignores that Aliso Creek is federally listed as an impaired water body for enterococci, Escherichia coli, fecal coliform, phosphorus and toxicity. The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board agrees.

Graphic courtesy of Ken Schiff/Southern California Coastal Water Research Project
Graphic courtesy of Ken Schiff/Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.The image shows urban runoff discharges along the south-county coastline.

Up to 5 million gallons of daily inland urban runoff flooding Aliso Creek transports dog poop, roadway oil and brake dust, herbicides and pesticides carelessly applied to homes plus recycled water that contains everything in our urine including pharmaceuticals, microbeads in our toothpaste and cosmetics, and latent viruses to Aliso Beach.

Hitting the surf zone, oxygen rich water, ultraviolet sunlight and saltwater usually kills off most human bacteria surviving in creek runoff.

And it’s not just us. California grey whales, coastal dolphins and other protected cetaceans must travel through the Laguna PooBelt during migration or when foraging for seafood. Recent surveys by Professor Lei Lani Steele has mapped clusters of cetacean’s in Laguna’s Marine Protected Areas intersecting with contaminated plumes from Aliso Creek’s urban runoff.

Fortunately, the city’s Environmental & Sustainability Committee has embarked on a project to collect map overlays from scientific groups and government agencies. For instance, with Southern California Coastal Water Research Project in Costa Mesa, maps can now identify the Aliso Creek urban runoff plume, floating as a warm contaminated slick over the colder, denser ocean water. The Bight ’13 Rocky Reef Report illustrates the Aliso Creek plume migrating as far as Main Beach and Emerald Bay and southward beyond Three Arch Bay. Paraphrasing Bob Marley, “When it rains, it don’t rain on one man’s house.” Likewise, when contaminated inland urban runoff is discharged onto Aliso Beach we are all in the plume. Yet Aliso Beach retains an “A” grade from Heal the Bay’s well-funded green-washing campaign.

While Heal the Bay acknowledges they do not go to the beach, if they did, they would avoid Aliso Beach as do most informed locals trusting common sense over nonsense from the “Heal the Bay Beach Report.” Hopefully the city will conduct their own tests to see what contaminates really are in the Aliso Creek “Lagoon” to keep us posted going into the summer as to the actual condition of ocean water quality.

Mike Beanan, Laguna Beach

The author is a member of the City’s Environmental & Sustainability Committee.

 

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2 COMMENTS

  1. HEALTH ISSUES RELATING TO VEHICLE BRAKE DUST
    Brake wear debris (Brake Dust) has been contaminating the environment for many decades. The general public is
    typically unaware of the negative health hazards that brake dust presents to all of us and to our global environment.
    The black dust deposited on vehicle wheel rims and the roadways is only visual evidence of this contamination.
    Brake dynamometer testing has shown that typically 80 – 90% of the total amount of the material worn away from
    the brake discs and pads is airborne. (See attached listings #1 and 2.)
    Heavy metals and other elements used in friction materials are emitted as dust as the brakes are used. This dust has
    recently been shown to be toxic to the environment. This knowledge resulted in the restriction and control of certain
    metals such as copper in friction materials in California and Washington State.
    Since this work was completed, human health has become the focus of intensive international research and is
    increasingly becoming public knowledge. This awareness increases the potential for litigation against the associated
    parties. Research relating to automotive and railroad applications concluded that airborne brake dust now includes
    human health considerations in addition to mechanical, aesthetic and environmental concerns. Listed below are
    publications relating brake wear debris to mutagenic and carcinogenic potency to humans, lung damage, high blood
    pressure, and dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have linked higher dementia risk to living near
    heavy traffic in London, England. (See attached listing #5.)
    Preventing the distribution of brake wear dust into the environment now may decrease potential liability in the
    future. The Clean Brake Performance Module (CBPModule) is designed to collect the dust during any braking event
    and does not interfere with the braking process. In addition the Module can be used as a research tool for interaction
    of the friction pair and allows qualitative and quantitative analysis of the wear debris collected. The CBPModule is
    adaptable to disc or drum brakes on all road and rail vehicle applications using friction brakes.
    For further information please visit http://www.cleanbrakeperformance.com. To learn how this technology can help solve
    your customers’ problems, please contact either Joe Gelb at [email protected] or John Fieldhouse
    at [email protected].
    Relevant Publications:
    1. US 6,592,642 B2; Ford Motor Company, July 15, 2003.
    2. “Mann+Hummel creates filter to target brake dust”, Filtration and Separation, September 15, 2017.
    3. “A Brake-Through Discovery”, Nirad Mudur, Bangalore Mirror Bureau, March 28, 2017.
    4. “Brake Dust May Cause More Problems Than Blackened Wheel Covers”, Rodney Weber and Hongyu
    Guo, Georgia Tech Research Horizons, March 2, 2017.
    5. “Scientists link higher dementias risk to living near heavy traffic”, Kate Kelland, Reuters, January 5, 2017.
    6. “Auto Iron Brake Dust and High Blood Pressure: The ’Moon Dust’ Link”, Digital Journal Press Release,
    January 23, 2018.
    7. “Magnetite Pollution Nanoparticles in the Human Brain”, Barbara A. Maher et. al.,.
    8. “Living near major roads and the incidence of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis: a
    population-based cohort study”, Hong Chen, et. al., http://www.thelancet Proceedings of the National Academy
    of Sciences of the USA, 2016 September, 113(39) 10797-10801.com, January 4, 2017.
    9. “Toxicity of the airborne brake wear debris”, Pavlina et. al., SAE International Journal of Materials and
    Manufacturing, January 1, 2017.
    February 18, 2018

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