Bellingham community members took to the I&J waterway site near the Port of Bellingham on Feb. 14 to band together and make the Salish Sea their Valentine this year in a beach cleanup effort hosted by REsources and the Surfrider Foundation.
The Valentine’s Day trash haul tolled in at 243.5 pounds of collected trash and 5 pounds of recycling. Nearly 70 community members, consisting of 20 students, 43 adults, one youth and four teachers, participated in the effort to pick-up the beach.
The dozens of Valentine’s day volunteers with trash grabbers, buckets and bags in hand littered about the beach shared surprised exclamations of shock from the thousands of tiny styrofoam pieces caked amongst the beaches sands and rocks.
Volunteer Kay Gardner, 66, said when she looked down at the ground scouting for trash she was astounded by the amount of styrofoam scattered on the waterfront and in the grasses.
“How it breaks up into smaller pieces, it's just everywhere,” Gardner said. “But it's kind of disheartening because you can't get all of it. But you have to think of the positive, you know, that you're doing something.”
Linda Miller, 55, who was a first time participant in the beach clean-up event, said she was taken aback by all of the microplastics colonizing the beach. Most of the pieces were so small that she needed to sift through the shoreline with her hands because the grabbers could not pick them up.
“We just see how plastic is forever,” Miller said. “Removing it, or recycling it, as best we can, is going to be one of the best ways to prevent it from becoming a bigger problem in our oceans.”
The hosts of the event, REsources and the Surfrider Foundation, advocate to defend and support clean and abundant water through beach cleanups, community science and ongoing monitoring, as well as promoting legislature to protect clean water.
Lead Scientist at REsources and North Sound Baykeeper Eleanor Hines, said cleaning up the beaches is crucial to promote good public care for these scenic spaces and urges others to imagine what beaches would look like now if no one ever cleaned up these waterfronts.
“By keeping our beaches clean I think that we encourage more stewardship of our beaches,” Hines said.
Hines was happy with the community turnout, considering it was Valentines Day, saying more people showed up than she expected.
Rondi Nordal, 24, who has been in an AmeriCorps position with REsources as an aquatic reserves monitoring and stewardship coordinator for a little over a year, said she feels that working with people in the community makes her work so much more meaningful.
“Attending these cleanups is a meaningful and measurable way to make a difference in the community and to learn more about local organizations that are helping pave the way to improve local communities,” Nordal said. “It’s a fun Valentine's Day date, get outside, do something good for the environment and have fun with your partner.”
Hines said the beach clean-ups are hosted at different sites on rotation. This month, the I&J Waterway site was chosen as the location due to the season. In the wintertime, south-facing shorelines generally net more marine garbage, Hines said. This is because marine debris is dragged in from a surge in winter storms and a prevailing wind trend.
Chemicals and persistent pollutants lurk beneath the glistening Salish Sea waters, Hines said, many of which aren’t visible to us.
According to the EPAs Health of the Salish Sea Report, the Salish Sea’s marine water quality is on a declining trend and reports a neutral trend in toxic chemicals like PCBs and PBDEs in the food web.
“When you're in a ferry, you don't necessarily see what's going on below the surface,” Hines said. “And so, at first glance, I think it's easy to think our bay might be doing fine. But I think that there's a lot more going on and that we need to continue to be vigilant and do everything that we can.”
Typically, the events collect an average of 100 to 300 pounds of trash and amass about 2000 pounds of total gathered trash yearly, Hines said.
Hines said the community can help combat this marine trash crisis by getting involved in local events like beach clean-ups, immersing yourself in community science programs or even working to publicly advocate for legislation that helps protect our waterways.
REsources and the Surfrider Foundation host monthly beach clean-ups that the community is encouraged to participate in, the next coming up on World Water Day, Tuesday March 22, 2022.
Dunbar said people can feel frozen from climate anxiety and fear for the future, but joining an event like a beach cleanup is an easy way to open yourself up to the possibility you can do something.
“We can make a difference here locally,” Dunbar said. “And then hopefully from here, you learn about all of the other ways that you can get involved. So we're hoping it's a good entry point to do even more.”
Raine Westfall is a fourth-year WWU student majoring in Biology with a Marine Emphasis and Visual Journalism. She’s interested in telling stories about the environment, but she also enjoys learning people’s stories and being able to share them with the community. You can contact her at rainewestfall.thefront@gmail.com.
