Fort Funston and Ocean Beach are once again strewn with litter and debris, as rainstorms have a way of drifting white bags and single-use plastics onto the shores near the Pacific Ocean.
The storms of late January had many San Francisco beachcombers puzzled and frustrated at the amount of trash that showed up on the shores of Ocean Beach and Fort Funston, and it’s happening again now. The Chronicle reports that the beach of Fort Funston is again littered with debris, a phenomenon that seems to coincide with the aftermath of big winter storms.
"Litter is always an issue from time to time, but we definitely see peaks during certain events throughout the year – significant rainfalls like this with heavy rain (and) flooding," Matt Huntington, vice chair of the SF chapter of the Surfrider Foundation that organizes beach clean-ups, tells the Chronicle. “We see it every year. Unfortunately this isn’t uncommon.”
The trash is generally not from people being litterbugs (not at the beach, at least), but instead likely flows from bodies of water that are tributaries into the Bay. After heavy rains, those tributaries can flush their accumulated trash and debris to the Pacific shoreline of SF beaches.
A spokesperson for the SF Public Utilities Commission tells the Chronicle that the agency does controlled releases of stormwater and wastewater at Ocean Beach and Fort Funston, but utilizes a process that would catch solid material and prevent that from being spilled onto the beach.
Those beaches are also under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, and a spokesperson of theirs told SFGate last month that “Our maintenance team has been made aware and is currently determining next steps.”
Meanwhile, there’s another storm heading in this weekend, so this is likely to occur again. The Surfrider Foundation has another storm cleanup scheduled for Sunday morning, though that could be canceled if it’s raining.
Related: Uh-Oh! Trash From Sewer ‘Outfalls’ Now Strewn All Across Ocean Beach, Fort Funston [SFist]
Image: surfridersf via Instagram
