Paddle Out Plastic

It's difficult to convey how much fishing line we retrieved from the water in LA Harbor today. And this was without going under the fishing pier where we consistently find line caught up in the pier infrastructure and often with dead, dangling birds attached. We found it in a few other places, including near the Cabrillo Marina Jetty. Jessie first spotted that one and began pulling it out from the rocks, only to find that it kept going and going. Eva began pulling from the water, then Ken joined in and pulled up two fishing rods with reels full of fishing line.
At the fishing pier, we were turned away. We always give fishers a wide berth, explaining to them what we are doing and making every effort to avoid their lines. Ordinarily the fishers there express appreciation that we're pulling out trash and lost line that traps unintended wildlife. On this day a fisher told us to get away, actually tossed his line at us and told us we were scaring away the fish. There was no convincing him that we wouldn't interfere with his fishing if we could just get under the pier to do what we came there for. We turned away.
The sea lion seen on Buoy 11 yesterday with fishing line wound tightly around its neck was there still today.

You'll find Paddle Out Plastic among the list of participants in the Report available via the link below, and you'll also find that we contributed photos to the Report from our work in LA Harbor, Alamitos Bay and Los Cerritos Channel at pages 13, 24, 49, 56, 58 and 73. And, some of our volunteers may be interested to see photos of themselves on the water at pages 13 and 24.

The link is to the Accomplishments Report of the California Ocean Litter Prevention Strategy, which was published by the Ocean Protection Council, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program, California Sea Grant, and the University of Southern California Sea Grant. The Strategy set up a number of goals to address ocean litter and plastic pollution and working groups met regularly to discuss progress implementing specific tasks toward achieving those goals. The Report reflects the work done by participants over the 2018-2025 time period. You might find it interesting. At the very least, the Report shows the enormous amount of attention and efforts being put toward the problem of plastic pollution by non-profit environmental groups as well as government agencies and even some innovative enterprises.

While it may seem sometimes that we're spinning our wheels, or more aptly paddling upstream against a strong current, and not making progress toward reducing the sources of this enormous pollution problem, Appendices A and B list legislation passed at local and state levels that hopefully will bear results over time.

opc.ca.gov