------------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 3, 2007 Surf’s Up, but the Water Is Brown By MIREYA NAVARRO
Los Angeles -- To the naked eye, Surfrider Beach in Malibu, Calif., couldn’t be lovelier: on a recent Friday, in 60-degree weather, the patch of the coastal mountains behind Malibu Pier was shrouded in morning fog. A flock of birds flew low over a sparse crowd of sunbathers, bobbing surfers and a lifeguard doing abdominals on a beach towel in front of his tower.
But Eric Gross, a 28-year-old creative director at his family’s graphic design studio who has been coming to Surfrider since childhood for its smooth, manicured wave, quickly shattered any postcard-quality impressions of this premier surfing beach.
Take the stench emanating from the nearby lagoon, where Malibu Creek meets the sea, he noted.
“You see discoloration and big brown blobs, like in a sewer,” Mr. Gross said of the days when the lagoon overflows and dumps untreated sewage on the waters he uses three to seven times a week. “Sometimes the water just stinks. You wash off in the shower and you’ve got this smell on you all day.”...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/fashion/03beaches.html> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl
If everybody had an ocean Across the U.S.A. Then everybody'd be surfin' Like Californi-a You'd seem 'em wearing their baggies Huarachi sandals too A great big can of spray Lysol Surfin' U.S.A.
-- Anon.
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