In Cameron Parish, Southwest Louisiana, 15 miles east of
where the Calcasieu River lets out into the Gulf in an area known as the “Cajun
Riviera,” sit Rutherford and Hackberry Beach. Last summer, Acadian Group
members led by Chair Harold Shoeffler set out on a beachcombing trip there, and
along with shells, interesting pieces of driftwood, and rosy cheeks, the group came
back with some other curious items: a road sign from Mexico, a perfectly good
hand saw, some fresh (and not so fresh) coconuts, and a crab trap or two.
Rutherford beach has no hotels, marinas, casinos, or any
other large developments, and what few camps existed there were mostly wiped
out by Hurricane Rita. As a result, there is no one to sweep the beach for
tourists or residents, and the trash that rolls in with the tide begins to
accumulate. Rutherford is a perfect example of what a “pristine” beach along
the Gulf looks like in 2012—plastic bottles, shoes, garbage of all sorts from
shrimp and oilfield boats…basically anything that gets thrown out into your
local waterway will eventually work its way into the Gulf, and either sink or
wash ashore. There’s also the issue of water quality. According to a recent
report by the NRDC, Cameron Parish beaches are the worst in the nation for
contamination—nearly 44% of all water samples taken there were over the safe
limit for levels of bacteria. Grand Isle fared a bit better, with only 8% of
samples taken showing unsafe levels.
On June 30th of this year, a small group of
Sierra Club members and their friends and families set out to document the
abundant types of trash on the coast. Here’s what they found: on average, each
10 yard stretch of beach—from shore to grassline—contains 19 plastic bottles, 6
glass bottles, 15 plastic fragments, 4 metal containers or fragments, 2 plastic
toys, a half a light bulb, 3 shoes, and about 5 feet of nylon rope. Other
interesting items included a broken cooler, caulk guns, fishing nets, a push
broom, giant pieces of yellow foam, a propane tank, a broken fishing basket,
and one of those little rubber bracelets people wear to show their support for
some cause (we’re betting that the cause wasn’t “Protect the Environment, Don’t
Litter”). All of these things were found along Hackberry beach, an area
adjacent to Rutherford that has no car access and therefore has very little
human activity.
The Sierra Club is dedicated to helping to educate the
public on the poor state of our beaches, and steps we can take to start to
clean them up. The Acadian Group will be sending out a press release about its
findings to raise awareness and hopefully recruit new members to help in the
cause. If you’d like to do something, call or write us at one of the contacts
listed on this website.
