No one wants to think about the kind of things that might be far below them in a lake.
But Richard James, the “Custodian,” is making people think about just that.
The volunteer from the Lake Merritt Institute in Oakland, California, has been dragging Lake Merritt’s waters and shore for the past three years. The area has recently had a lot of rain, which caused its waters to swell, carrying trash up over the bank.
James’ most disturbing find? Lots and lots of drug paraphernalia. The most copious find was hypodermic needles. He pulled about 250 needles from the water.
He spent more than five hours working the day before Thanksgiving, perched by a storm drain and fishing out all the trash he could.
The Lake Merritt Institute has been cleaning trash from the lakeshores five days a week since 1992.
Volunteers from local schools and other places come together to pick garbage from the water and the banks. The volume is staggering.
Institute volunteers fish between 1,000 and 6,000 pounds of garbage from the lake every single month. Considering that 62 different inlets feed the lake, the trash could come from many places. James says his “haul” this past week probably comes from the bay, as well as storm drains and homeless camps.
Lake Merritt is the oldest wildlife refuge in the United States. It covers 140 acres near Oakland, California.
Hypodermic needles aren’t the only drug paraphernalia that James found in the lake.
He also found an enormous number of “bullets.” These are used to snort cocaine and ketamine, as well as other drugs.
It’s a depressing haul. James sometimes feels like he isn’t making any progress.
“The first flush is huge,” he said. “How many more are in there? I didn’t even put a dent in it. Maybe I should clean my hands.”
In addition to the drug paraphernalia, James also found bottles, lighters, and even bags of feces. From whom, he didn’t know.
The trash flows in from the downtown Oakland region, pointing to a huge drug problem in the area.
Meth use has been skyrocketing since 2011. Cocaine and hydrocodone use are also high. Methadone, a prescription drug that’s actually supposed to help treat opioid addiction, caused almost half of drug-related deaths in 2009 and 2010.
Heroin use is especially high among the homeless population, so it’s no surprise that inlets coming in from homeless camps are carrying needles. City officials won’t even send in garbage crews to clean certain homeless camps anymore. The huge volume of needles makes it too dangerous for workers.
“The goal was not to make this a cool place to live, it was to put people in housing,” said Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney. “We’ve seen that people living in this community have mental health and addiction issues, and those things are continuing to emerge.”
Unfortunately, Lake Merritt isn’t the only waterway that’s seeing a rising amount of drug paraphernalia.
In Santa Cruz, it’s become common for people, especially children, to step on a needle at the beach.
“It’s become pretty commonplace to find them. We call it a rite of passage for a child to find their first needle,” said Gabrielle Korte, a member of Take Back Santa Cruz. “It’s very depressing. It’s infuriating. It’s just gross.”
It’s a huge problem since dirty needles can transmit a number of diseases, including hepatitis B and C. Because of this, people are encouraged to seek testing after stepping on a needle.
It’s not just a problem for people.
The rising levels of water pollution can cause issues for fish and other animal life.
It is common for birds and fish to try to eat plastic garbage, which can fill their stomachs and cause them to starve because they can’t ingest real food. They can also choke on garbage. Human pollution has almost wiped out a number of marine species around the world.
Trash also carries chemical pollutants that can harm animal life.
These pollutants can build up in fish and make them seriously sick. Trash can even deplete oxygen levels in bodies of water.
For some animals, eating garbage won’t necessarily affect them in the short term, but it can harm their ability to reproduce. This is another way that garbage hurts marine populations. If animals can’t breed, their species will die out quickly. With enormous amounts of trash collecting in places like Lake Merritt, it won’t be long before the debris has a serious impact on marine life.
More than 85 percent of the populations of California, Oregon, and Washington live along bodies of water.
These pollution problems are serious, especially when it comes to hypodermic needles, which can transmit diseases and infection.
The Lake Merritt Institute continues to lead its campaign to clean the waterways in Oakland, but it is a huge task. Currently, volunteers are trying to combat an ongoing issue of people dumping paint, cement, and oil into the watershed. They are also fighting the trash flow from dozens of different places.
People like James wonder if they’re really making any progress, and the institute still has a long way to go.
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