Quote:
Originally Posted by sluissa
I say regulate the bigger problems first. Agricultural runoff, big corporations or even smaller businesses dumping things, raw city sewage and storm drain water being pumped directly into the water. Fix those and then go after the relatively clean boaters if you have to.
|
I have to agree sluissa,
During a few major storms last year and the previous year, I was off the
San Francisco and EBMUD sewage outfalls taking samples for both of those utilities. I could smell the untreated sewage and see occasional solids up at the surface. At times I was literally floating in raw untreated sewage. I could see it, smell it and see the salinity change on my flow through system (which I subsequently had to shut down). To say the least, it was disgusting. The municipalities are FAR FAR greater polluters than all of the
boats combined. They do normally treat their sewage, but during heavy rainfalls their treatment plants are overwhelmed to the point where they are only able to treat the larger solids....the rest goes untreated directly into the
SF Bay (primary treatment)...normally there is secondary and tertiary treatment.
The
money needs to go to the grossest of the polluters first if you want to effect the greatest bang for the buck.
In the San Joaquin
Delta, pesticides and fertilizers are causing trouble for the phytoplankton and zooplankton....negatively affecting the
food chain for all life in the
SF Bay. And the
government is more concerned about the yachties?
Besides, it is already illegal for all boaters to dump their poop in the water...yet these utilities can do the same exact thing but on a much more massive scale with absolutely no ramifications.
Where is the consistency, the logic and the bang for the buck? With the utilities pumping millions of gallons of crap into the SF Bay during each and every major rainfall, how is the licensing of yachties going to make any negligible difference? Take the same
money that it is going to take to
license,
monitor and enforce this ridiculous licensing for
boats and apply it towards upgrading the big sewage treatment plants.