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Water Ways Ray Pendleton |
People still just
don’t get the driftThe folks who are tidying up our beaches and waterways today in the "Get the Drift and Bag It" cleanup effort really didn't need last week's rainstorm.
There was already plenty of litter to pick up without Mother Nature's help.
You know what I'm talking about if you were around the Ala Wai Canal and harbor on the morning of Sept. 11.
A heavy overnight rainfall in the Koolau Mountains had sent floods of water rushing down streams like the Manoa and Palolo, and those floods picked up anything that would float.
By sunrise, the state's floating debris trap beneath the Ala Moana Bridge was overflowing and the harbor's boat slips -- particularly at the adjacent Waikiki Yacht Club -- were beginning to look like litter-infested beaver dams.
Yes, some of the material -- coconuts, grass, leaves, etcetera -- was natural vegetation, but the majority of the debris had the unmistakable touch of humans. Logs, limbs, branches and plywood -- they all had been cut or sawn.
And, of course, blended through the mixture was the usual urban litter of plastic cups, bottles, buckets, boxes, plates, coolers, shoes, tires and balls from nearly every sport.
As one cleanup organizer Christine Woolaway told us last week, the consistency of this kind of litter indicates that apparently many people have not learned, or do not care that their individual impact is, collectively, creating a huge problem.
In fact, in my nonscientific, but empirically based opinion, little has changed here in many years.
In March 1994 I wrote about a similar storm-related dock disaster. But unlike last week's impact of litter, that rainstorm's intensity was felt in Waikiki as well as in the mountains.
Not only did the state's debris trap fill to overflowing, it eventually burst from the stress of tons of trash being pushed into it by raging torrents of water and high winds.
When the trap let go, its collected refuse immediately began piling up against the Waikiki Yacht Club's moored boats and its accumulated weight started tearing the docks from their moorings.
Had it not been for the efforts of numerous club members who risked life and limb to secure the docks and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of boats, the total loss would have been disastrous.
And then too, like last week, requests to the state for assistance were rejected. The club's only option was to reluctantly push these "trash bergs" back out into the main channel, where they moved with the tide into the ocean to become hazards to health and navigation.
A few years ago, many of us had hoped that the federally funded Ala Wai Watershed Association would find ways to diminish the effects of these reoccurring events.
But many thousands of dollars and volunteer hours later, it is disappointing to note little has changed. We can only wonder if the blame rests with the association itself or with the Environmental Protection Agency, which is charged with approving project expenditures.
Whatever the case, it's safe to say the volunteers working around the Ala Wai this morning won't have to search very hard to find plenty of "drift" to bag.
In fact, if a Kona wind empties what's still floating in the state's trash trap, they'll be overwhelmed.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Ray Pendleton is a free-lance writer based in Honolulu.
His column runs Saturdays in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at raypendleton@mac.com.
