Living in Hawaii puts us all in a close relationship with the ocean. Surrounded on all sides, we have profound affect on this precious resource. However, slowly, we are ruining it. There are many different types of pollution. However the most common type is non-point source pollution. This is essentially run off pollution. Everything from car washes, to rain water, to oil from our roads all eventually finds its way to the ocean. As much as 80% of ocean pollution originates from land. Living on an island only multiplies this fact. We can see this in our everyday environment. Surfing at Point Panics, I constantly see all sorts of rubbish floating through the water. Because it is at the mouth of a major harbor and receives significant runoff and suffers from poor water quality, there is no coral growing there.
Ocean pollution also affects our wild life. With all the surface run off bringing toxins into the water, it causes animals to retain these toxins through out their lifetime. The more they inhabit the water, which contains these harmful toxins, the more concentrated these substances become. This can directly affect anyone who enjoys seafood; by consuming seafood we consume all the toxins that the animal had consumed. This is also become devastating to our local fisheries as well. Already many fisheries are beyond repair and nearing extinction. Drag net fishing is also devastating to the reefs as well as the fish. They drag miles of net, ripping up everything in their path. If the net gets snagged, they cut it off and let the miles of net drift along the ocean, a hazard to the life that lives there.
Another form of pollution is ships, both foreign and local. Some of the most harmful ships are cruise ships. On average they carry as many as 3000 passengers. These ships are essentially self-contained cities, and they produce as much was as a medium sized city as well. More importantly, these ships are no required to comply with water quality or environmental laws. This means they can dump all their raw sewage directly into the ocean, as long as they are 3 miles off shore. But as many of us know, the ocean does not remain static, and this waste can easily find its way back to our shores. Algae can flourish in this waste-water, which doesn’t let sunlight get to the reefs and kills them. There is also a lot of sea life 3 miles out from our shores and their ecosystem is being directly poisoned. Ships also regularly dump their oily binge water into the ocean. As anyone who has been to a harbor can attest, the water quality is less that sub-par.
Living in Hawaii we rely on tourism to support our economy. We all felt the affects of 9/11 when tourism slowed. What would happen if tourism stopped all together? People come to Hawaii to visit because of the natural beauty. they expect to spend their time in an tropical paradise swimming in the ocean, snorkling with the fish and spending time on our beautiful beaches. But what happens if these beaches are no longer beautiful, the water not clean enough to swim in, and the reefs and fish all dead? Hawaii and it's inhabitants rely on the ocean to bring in tourism, and without it living here would become impossible for many people.
We all contribute to the pollution in our oceans, but if we take the time to think about what we’re actually doing, we can help reduce our impact.
http://www.yoto98.noaa.gov/facts/pollut.htm
http://www.kahea.org/ocean/
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/environment.html
http://www.surfrider.org/.../ BeachWarning.bmp
