Turning the tide on urban runoff

Paul Clinton

Most days, John Moore’s stomach turned as he headed to the shoreline

with his surfboard. The teenager, a senior at Newport Harbor High School,

nearly lost it each time he stepped onto a beach swimming in trash.

With that in mind at a Tuesday press conference, Moore said he hopes

to raise some eyebrows about the city’s persistent problem with urban

runoff: Styrofoam cups, tennis balls, plastic bags and other refuse that

washes down the Santa Ana River.

Moore and about two dozen other students in Scott Moran’s surf class

at the high school gathered with city officials and environmentalists

Tuesday to address the runoff problem.

“Right now we’re just trying to raise awareness,” Moore said. “We’re

deciding to do something about this. We just saw what was around us.”

To help lower the trash count on city beaches, the Earth Resource

Foundation, the Costa Mesa environmental group that hosted Tuesday’s news

conference, will begin shopping more environmentally friendly cups,

plates and cutlery -- made from corn-based materials rather than

petroleum and bleach -- to Newport Beach’s more than 400 restaurants.

Stephanie Barger, the executive director of the foundation, said she

hopes the products, which cost a little more, won’t be a tough sell.

“There’s always that myth that people won’t use environmentally

sensitive products,” Barger said. “I would pay the extra 5 cents a meal

to help save our environment.”

Much of the battle can be fought in town, but other more inland

communities along the river’s corridor must also be educated, Barger

said.

The simplest way a Styrofoam cup reaches the beach is when someone in

Santa Ana or Orange or another city tosses an empty fast-food cup into

the gutter.

Newport Beach is also chipping in to help solve the trash problem. The

City Council will send a joint letter next week to the eateries urging

them to join the environmentally friendly crowd.

“I think it’s the best way to do it rather than some kind of a ban on

Styrofoam in the city,” Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said. “The best

way is to try to apply some peer pressure.”