In a few weeks, families will head to our area’s beaches to soak up fun in the sun. But they won’t be pleased to see the piles of garbage that washed ashore.
“It’s disheartening,” said John Wuttke of the local volunteer clean-up group, B.E.A.C.H., which stands for Building Everyone a Cleaner Houston. “It’s a big issue with people littering up in Houston, and it washes down here, ends up on nature’s back door.”
Today, you can see gas containers, crates, even a portable toilet off Galveston Bay in La Porte.
There are also tons of water bottles.
“It’s just beyond imaginable that there’s this much plastic that’s slowly degrading and getting into the water," Wuttke said.
The power of Hurricane Harvey surely compounded the problem, but it doesn’t take that kind of flooding intensity for pollution to build, according to Sarah Gosset, the Water Quality Manager, with the Galveston Bay Foundation.
“It’s very certainly a tragedy when you see this level of trash and debris," Gosset said.
Gossett works with local government agencies to get resources for trash removal. She says it’s not only what ends up on land that’s scary, but all the things you don’t see that affect us and wildlife.
Referring to fish, birds and turtles, she says, “They get trapped in it. They accidentally eat it. You don’t want to be eating the seafood that’s living in a dirty body of water.”
To report pollution, you can go to the Galveston Bay Action Network app. The app will send the information to the property authorities to clean it up.