Surfrider: Preservation On Several Fronts
By: Eilene Zimmerman

Last month, the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, pulled out of a lawsuit that aimed to stop Poseidon Resources from building a desalination plant in Carlsbad although construction has already begun. The plant will turn saltwater from the ocean into 50 million gallons of drinking water each day. It’s expected to provide enough drinking water for 300,000 residents when it is operational in two years. Surfrider’s absence in the lawsuit leaves San Diego CoastKeeper as the only litigant fighting the plant.

Ken David, Surfrider San Diego’s spokesperson, says although the organization still believes the lawsuit has merit, it was decided to focus resources and energy elsewhere. Contrary to what many believe, the local environmental group is staffed almost completely by volunteers, including David. Surfrider’s national headquarters is in San Clemente, and it has a very small paid staff.

Although Surfrider opposed Poseidon’s project, David says it wasn’t just the Carlsbad plant they were concerned about, but “the proliferation of bad desalination projects. The Carlsbad plant was a major concern for us because it has water intakes above the sea floor. The preferred technology has always been for a subsurface intake. We are concerned that with open intake or above-the-sea-floor intake, you have a large amount of fish larvae sucked into it and killed.”

David says a number of other concerns were also raised, and because this plant is precedent–setting in San Diego, “we need to get it right, and we want the public to understand the issues associated with it.”

Still, Surfrider decided to focus its energies on other parts of its agenda. That agenda includes educating the public about water problems in the region. David says the region has an increasing population and a water conveyance system that doesn’t provide water for a significant portion of the population. Water management is also a big issue.

“We don’t talk about, or aren’t willing to talk about, real conservation—such as planning and development that is within our water means, and examining and implementing indirect potable reuse,” says David.

Indirect potable reuse—or the reuse of water—has had a negative rap because of the media’s use of the phrase “toilet-to-tap” to describe it. David says Surfrider hopes to re-educate citizens about water in a program called Know Your H20.

“The campaign is an attempt to help people understand the water cycle in a real way, he says. “Right now, we learn about the water cycle in school as rain, coming down, going into a pool and evaporating. But that doesn’t account for bringing water from Northern California to Southern California, pollution issues, runoff and where the water goes after we use it.”

The organization continues its Ocean Friendly Gardens campaign—helping residents with things like using non-toxic alternatives to weed killer. There is an Ocean Friendly Gardens blog on the national website to promote the idea of preventing water from running off the yard by creating a lawn or garden that retains the water. It also contains information about xeriscaping and the wide varieties of low-water plants that can be used instead of grass.

Surfrider also just revamped its Hold Onto Your Butt campaign to get people to stop throwing cigarette butts out of the car or onto the street.

“They wash into the gutter and into the ocean," says David. "And the filters contain plastic that never totally breaks down. They also have toxins trapped with them that is released when the filter hits the water.”

Another cleverly titled program: The No BS campaign—the BS stands for Border Sewage. It began last year, but in 2010 is really in full swing, says David, and it aims to deal with pollution in the South Bay.

We have joined with other organizations, like WildCoast and the Tijuana River Citizens Council and organized cleanups,” he says.

There's also the ongoing battle for beach preservation. David says Surfrider is concerned with sand loss, and one contributing factor to beach erosion are sea walls, put up by property owners trying to protect their homes.

“When people build, they should build further back from the beachfront to accommodate the natural erosion process,” he says. Often residents don’t recognize that if a seawall is regularly battered by waves, it can cause more rapid erosion of the beach because those waves take sand away from the shoreline. And erosion from cliffs and hills is a significant source of beach sand—something seawalls also prevent from happening.

The goal of Surfrider’s outreach and education is to help San Diegans understand that rather than trying to control nature, says David, "we need to work with and adapt to the world around us."