Welcome to the Official Home of the Ocean Outfall Group
The Ocean Outfall Group doesn't like plastic in the ocean. But we don't campaign against it. We don't like cigarette butts on the beach, but we leave that battle to someone else. And we absolutely despise plastic bags. Turtles -who naturally eat jellyfish- can eat plastic bags by mistake and get them stuck in their intestinal tract and die. But again, that's not our pet peeve. What the Ocean Outfall Group does, though, is tackle the big, scary issues no one else will touch with a ten foot pole. Issues like SEA WATER DESALINATION, SEISMIC TESTING, NAVY SONAR, INDUSTRIAL SEA WATER INTAKES, and even that little handle on your toilet bowl. It sure is easy to flip that lever now, isn't it? Everybody does it. In the immortal words of Mel Brooks, "C'mon, you know you do it. Everybody does it- I just did it, I'm ready to do it again!"
But few ever stop to wonder, what happens to the rather unglamorous contents of that bowl after the lever is flipped. There's a bumper sticker that says, FLUSH HARD, IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE BEACH'. And, unfortunately, that about sums it up.
Not everybody has the time to look into such things and that's where organizations like the Ocean Outfall Group come in. We have a pretty good handle on who dumps what, where, and how much. We also have a good grasp on the level of treatment a municipalities discharge receives before being unceremoniously jettisoned into our precious ocean, mother of our species, provider of all our fish and half the air we breathe. Most folks don't even know we dump our sewage into the ocean, much less that places like San Diego do it using a 'waiver' that allows for extra fecal debris in the discharge! And you might even ask, why do we dump it in the ocean at all? -and you'd have an excellent point! Well, here's to cleaning up our act, not only in California, but nationally and even internationally.
Some of the people who should be taking care of our sea and sea creatures, instead don't act as they should and do bad things. Even people who mean well, can be, well, mean. Listen to this speech below that I made recently to the California Coastal Commission (who we support very strongly!). Sometimes, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
But few ever stop to wonder, what happens to the rather unglamorous contents of that bowl after the lever is flipped. There's a bumper sticker that says, FLUSH HARD, IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE BEACH'. And, unfortunately, that about sums it up.
Not everybody has the time to look into such things and that's where organizations like the Ocean Outfall Group come in. We have a pretty good handle on who dumps what, where, and how much. We also have a good grasp on the level of treatment a municipalities discharge receives before being unceremoniously jettisoned into our precious ocean, mother of our species, provider of all our fish and half the air we breathe. Most folks don't even know we dump our sewage into the ocean, much less that places like San Diego do it using a 'waiver' that allows for extra fecal debris in the discharge! And you might even ask, why do we dump it in the ocean at all? -and you'd have an excellent point! Well, here's to cleaning up our act, not only in California, but nationally and even internationally.
Some of the people who should be taking care of our sea and sea creatures, instead don't act as they should and do bad things. Even people who mean well, can be, well, mean. Listen to this speech below that I made recently to the California Coastal Commission (who we support very strongly!). Sometimes, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
