By Gregory Palmerino

“You mean, they are all… alive?”

We were standing over the tide pools of the Northern Pacific.

The speaker was a grandfather from South Asia who looked to be in his 80s and accompanied by three generations of family, visiting the Aquarium of the Pacific where I was volunteering as an education interpreter that day. His Children and grandchildren giggled and splashed–the man looked closer. 

“They certainly are,” I confirmed. “All alive. You can touch them if you like.”

He gazed down into the cold shallow water, the jewel tones of the creatures there reflected in his glasses, a genuine look of wonder on his face as he reached out to make contact. He hesitated for a moment, eyes wide he looked back to me as if for confirmation. 

I nodded and the grandfather broke the surface of the icy water and touched a brand new world for the first time. It struck me, this experience. Perhaps because of the age and origin of this man–that something could still be new to discover. Yet, there is still much to be discovered in our oceans. Many more wonders to behold.

New discoveries are happening in the ocean all the time–the National Ocean Service estimates that 91 percent of ocean species have yet to be classified and a vast majority of our ocean has yet to be observed or explored. Yet all over the world marine ecosystems are being challenged and threatened by the influence of humanity, the same creatures who find such wonder in this ecosystem and the life hosted within.

It is easy to condemn an event like the 17 million gallons of raw, unfiltered sewage that was discharged into the Pacific Ocean on July 12, 2021 by the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in El Segundo California. It is easy to conjure up the image of a distressed  and disheartened Lorax hanging his head in disgust. This type of sewage release into the ocean creates a sensory impact that residents in coastal communities can see, and more impact fully–smell. It is an event that has immediate and visceral consequences.

Generally, treated sewage water is sent to a drainage pipes 5 miles out to sea but according to reporting by the California News Times, in this emergency situation the raw sewage was sent to a drain only one mile off shore thus heightening the impact on local residents.

This release of raw sewage was an emergency–the cause of which is still under speculation at the writing of this article. However, the release of sewage into the ocean, treated or not, is a common practice. It is quite literally build into the infrastructure of Los Angeles and is not, as it is often considered, an “accidental spill,” but an intentional action. In fact, Hyperion and other facilities regularly discharge a form of treated sewage, often referred to as grey water into our oceans via the very same drains responsible for the July 12 discharge. Grey water must meet certain environmental regulations yet it still contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus.

While untreated sewage is difficult to ignore, treated sewage has an impact that is no less insidious. A recent study led by UCLA scientists shows the correlation between treated wastewater discharges and the changing biochemistry of Southern California’s waters, in particular as it relates to eutrophication–a process in which the marine environment is depleted of oxygen, killing off any life that lives in the affected area.

“The thought that a major city on a coast exposed to strong currents  could experience eutrophication is new,” said James McWilliams, the study’s lead author, in reporting released by the UCLA Newsroom. 

Yet the excessive amounts of nutrients diverted into our oceans in the form of treated–and untreated–wastewater, combined with the influence of warming global temperatures has created all the conditions necessary for this process to occur. A process that starts with a microscopic unicellular algae that is the basis for the entire oceanic food web–phytoplankton.

“I’ve always had an appreciation for things that were under appreciated,” Jen Runyan, Education Coordinator at the Aquarium of the Pacific told me as we sat down to discuss phytoplankton in one of the aquarium’s education classrooms. “I’m all about the unicellular algae and the unseen word.”

Runyan, at the age of 37, has spent much of her career studying phytoplankton and algae blooms–a passion she discovered on a 7th grade field trip when she was able to participate in a plankton tow with the Catalina Island Marine Institute.

I asked her how an event like the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant’s July 12 discharge of raw sewage would affect our local phytoplankton community:

“A lot of those nutrients from the sewage are going to be in the form of ammonia, which is a form that is not readily available for phytoplankton to be able to absorb. It must go through something called nitrification to allow it to go from ammonia to nitrate–the usable form of nitrogen that plants and other phytoplankton are able to use up. There is a lot of break down due to the bacteria in the ocean munching away on the ammonia and increasing in numbers making nitrate for the phytoplankton to feed on, thus increasing their numbers as well.”

“So basically,” Runyan continued, “you have so many phytoplankton that bloom in the water that they use up all the nutrients and then become depleted those nutrients and end up dying. As they slowly sink to the ocean floor, the bacteria who are decomposers go ahead and start munching away on those dead or dying phytoplankton. Then those bacteria use up the oxygen that is in the area creating an oxygen depletion in the water column.”

In addition to depleting the water column of oxygen and causing eutrophication, these blooms of phytoplankton can have toxic effects on humans and animals alike. Extensive research has shown that harmful algal blooms have been linked to large scale dolphin moralities, massive fish kills, paralytic shellfish poisoning, mass die offs of seals, manatees, and humpback whales, and much more. 

If the ecological impact of eutrophication and harmful algal blooms are not enough, there is also a very real economic impact. In a study on algal blooms released in March of 2021 it was noted that: 

“The delay of Dungeness crab season due to a massive domain acid event on the U.S. West coast in 2015 caused an estimated $48.3 million in direct economic impacts and resulted in an appropriation by congress of $25 million in disaster aid.”

The study further states that, “Potentially impacted resources include commercially harvested fish and shellfish with a value of $5.6 billion in 2018, and aquaculture production valued at $1.5 billion in 2017.”

According to the National Ocean Service, “Fourteen percent of U.S. counties that are adjacent to the coast produce 45 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, with over three million jobs (one in 45) directly dependent on the resources of the oceans.” Yet at the same time, Californians take on average of 3.56 million sick leave days per year due to the effects of beach water pollution.

Knowing what we know begs the question–why are we still allowing wastewater to enter our oceans at all? Aside from the financial aspect of overhauling and updating an antiquated system there is also the social considerations and perceptions of reclaimed water programs. There is often “ick factor” with programs with titles like “toilet to tap.” Yet these solutions exist and in fact, the implementation of them would not only keep wastewater out of our oceans but also help to offset the water shortages caused by climate change driven droughts.

By implementing a circular water economy, one in which wastewater is treated, cleaned, and reused bay the community it serves in a cycle that mimics the one of Mother Nature, can not only keep sewage out of our oceans, but also offset economic and social issues caused by water shortages. According to a study published by IGI Global:

“It is projected that in the next three decades the growing population and economy will push the water stress to its limits and freshwater availability may become the world’s biggest impediment for growth. Southern California is already experiencing such a situation… the current water crisis can be attributed to poor water system management.”

The wonder of our world is fading. According to Ocean Conservancy, 2021’s summer of record breaking heat has killed at least 1 billion animals in the intertidal zone. The real world environment that the touch tank exhibit I met the elder grandfather that day years ago was designed to reflect. I often think of that patriarch touching an anemone for the first time–making contact with the water world.

I think of him, and I wonder if his grandchildren will know a world where the life he encountered that day still exists outside the walls of an aquarium.