As the volunteer Park Host for the Bureau of Reclamation at Lake Berryessa, I lived in my motorhome in a spot with full hookups at the entrance to the Oak Shores day use area. From this location, my standard exercise paddle was around Big Island and other nearby islands. I soon began to notice the large amount of styrofoam along the shoreline and embedded in the nearby grass and thistle. The foam ranged in size from small baseball size up to large floats six to eight feet long. More than any other item, styrofoam looks out of place and unearthly. It ruins any semblance of a natural feeling.
Initially, I started picking up the occasional small chunk that I could reach with my paddle without getting out of the boat. I would bring these pieces in on my deck and leave them next to my garbage can for collection. Next I started towing in larger pieces, using them as rafts for piling on other larger pieces and smaller pieces once my deck was full. Soon tiring of carrying these larger loads up to my garbage can, I began leaving loads next to other cans in Oak Shores. This evolved to leaving loads right on the shoreline at the end of the two boat ramps in Oak Shores where the piles could be accessed and carried off by truck. I also tried accumulating piles on Big Island for collection by a Bureau boat but this didn't happen so I ended up towing these piles to Oak Shores as well. Finally, I expanded collection to the entire west shore whenever I did a paddle along the shore.
The Bureau offered full support for collection by instructing the rangers and maintenance to pick up any styrofoam they saw piled along the roads as they did their rounds and patrols. These folks usually travel in pickup trucks so throwing the stuff in back and taking it to the debris bin in the central Administration area fit easily into the established routines. This support was essential for removing the foam from the lake environment.
The source of all this styrofoam is the many docks at the resort marinas. Foam floats get loose from the docks due to wave action during windy weather. Entire docks also drift loose and release foam as they are beaten by wind waves around the lake. The floats are carried by the wind to all parts of the lake. The wind grinds the styrofoam floats against the rocky shoreline, breaking them into smaller pieces and then into fine pellets. All of this styrofoam has been allowed to accumulate over the decades with only occasional attempts at collection. Much of the foam is embedded in the grass near or above the high water mark, stranded there after floods or picked up and blown by the wind. The rest floats serenely at the water line or out in the main lake. Big Island is a focal point for much of this foam as the large blocks sail the length of the lake on the wind. It took about 36 kayak loads over a six month period to clean all of the foam off Big Island.
Excerpted from my personal journal, these are notes and photos made during the styrofoam cleanup.
FALL 2010
HELPING THE WORLD
GET BIO SMART
through using BioSmart
Sustainable Packaging and Serviceware.
Made From 100% Ntural Sugar Cane. Http://www.earthsmartllc.com
WATCH THIS WONDERFUL VIDEO
MADE IN JULY 2010 on the OUTDOOR CHANNEL
In this Video made at the
This wonderful video describes
The new EarthSmart product
made for fishermen and receation uses.
BioSmart and EarthSmart are sister companies.
EarthSmart came first,
says Keep The Beet Media Star
The World's First Talking Beet Plant.
She roots for Anthony Russo,
the founding Beet Keepers, Return
Rock Your Soul Opera Star.
Ordering the product at this link
helps support the Plant Your Dream Blog and
my many Non-profit projects,
including the Skits to be performed
as part of the Fall 2010 BEET KEEPERS, RETURN!
ROCK YOUR SOUL OPERA
Keep The Beet wants you to be the Star
in her Rock Your Soul Opera.
Our Beloved Earth needs your seed dreams in
the world now coming up with to turn the beat the beat of nature
around in our lives that have become too plastic!!!!
Tell every body you know about
getting Bio Smart through using
BioSmart Sustainable Packaging and Serviceware Solutions.
Green Living is made easy.
We no longer need to use products that
hurt our oceans and fill up the earth with
unnecessary waste.
The Biogasse Sugar Cane Pots
that Keep The Beet's friend
Anthony Russo and farmers make
need to be used whereever sytrofoam
was soild!!!!
This is an Enchanted Garden Campaign
launching now.
We are going to Green our local
Hillcrest Farmers' Market, one of the
friendliest Farmeers' Markets in the World!
DID YOU HEAR ABOUT KEEP THE BEET
going out to the Great Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch
on a raft made of BioSmart?
READ OUR FIRST DRAFT FROM THE scriipt HERE
Fall activity 2010 will include beginning to
make skits for BEET KEEPERS, RETURN!
In our fantasy, Keep The Beet Media Star,
The World's First Talking Beet Plant sails
out to the Great Pacific Cyre on a raft
to see what the discarded waste,
including toxic styrrofoam,
that has accumulated in the ocean.
BioSmart Sustainable Packaging
and Serviceware gives us solutions
to End The Use of Syrofoam.
Kids will make art on the styrofoam
containers to launch the Fall campaign.
What they do will end up as little Videos
that will be in the Beet Keepers, Return!
Rock Your Soul Opera.
There are six trash piles in the ocean.
The one called The Great Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch
is bigger than the size of Texas.
In Beet Keepers, Return!
Our Rock Your Soul Opera,
our talking beet goes out
to see and seed a new future.
We have been getting very hurtful
messages lately helping us see
we simply need to go Green.
Going Green is Simple now
thanks to getting Bio Smart!!!
BIOSMART
at the La Milpa Organica Farm
Potluck August 21, 2010
Anthony Russo, Seed Dreaming at the
Enchanted Garden Intentional Community, Fall 2009.
ORDER BIOSMART BAGASSE HERE
Ordering the product at this link
helps support the Plant Your Dream Blog and
my many Non-profit projects,
including the Skits to be performed
as part of the Fall 2010 BEET KEEPERS, RETURN!
ROCK YOUR SOUL OPERA http://www.biosmartbiodegradable.com/s.nl?partner=Beetkeepers
Our relationship to the Food Chain--the very chain
of being is broken now on land and at sea.
It is time for the Beetkeepers to come together
to keep the beat with nature. 1000 years from
now, we will look back at this moment in time
as a time when key decisions were made that determined
the fate of our bright green future. It is an honor
to be seed dreaming with Anthony Russo
of the Biosmart and Earthsmart Company.
His vision of providing sustainable packaging
and serviceware made from 100 % natural sugar cane
and other products are helping us all make the
right decisions.
Christina Russo, Anthony's daughter and I, met for the first
time at the San Diego State University Earth Day April 22.
Keep The Beet was pleased.
Keep the Beet Media Star,
The World's First Talking Beet Plant is the
poster "plant" for The Great Earth Clean Up.
The project will move into high gear with
its Fall 2010 Campaign.
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