On a Clean Day, You Can See the Harbor

It was a dirty job and nobody had to do it, really.

But swept away by a sense of civic pride and the promise of a party, about 300 volunteers spent Saturday morning gathering, raking and bagging 7 tons of trash in and around Newport Harbor.

“You don’t have to do it. But if you live and work on the bay, you want to protect it and make it as enjoyable as you can,” said Vicki Michalczyk, owner of the Balboa Boat Yard and an area director for the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the ninth annual Clean Harbor Day.

Debris collectors fanned out as early as 8 a.m. in 15 boats and walking groups while City Council members Clarence J. Turner, Evelyn R. Hart and Ruthelyn Plummer boarded an

‘You don’t have to do it. But if you live and work on the bay, you want to protect it and make it as enjoyable as you can.’

--Vicki Michalczyk,

owner of the Balboa Boat Yard

observation boat. They later returned dockside to join supporters--including Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach)--who gathered

at the Cannery restaurant, which provided free soda and hot dogs, march and bagpipe music and a no-host bar.

Returning trash collectors included 20 members of the Young Republicans of Orange County, the Kiwanis Club, 10 Scouts from Troop 90 of the Sea Scout base in Newport and individuals such as businessman Mark Hart, whose motorboat Hartless nearly sank with 30 sacks of trash on it.

“We forgot to put the plug in it,” explained a chagrined Hart. He said that after motoring off Balboa Island picking up trash with a dozen comrades, he noticed that the water in the boat was ankle deep. “Then it was shin deep. Then it looked like it was going to be knee deep. The engines were flooded and the battery was dead.”

In view of partying supporters, Hart and his friend Mary Pat Earl bailed water until they themselves were bailed out by the Harbor Patrol. They returned later to pick up hot dogs, a lost dog and their Big Dipper award, given out with other mostly tongue-in-cheek honors.

Mike Russell, an insurance salesman in red sunglasses, said his crew filled 15 bags of plastic trash, cigarette butts, bottle caps and other junk stuck in seaweed. “It’s a jungle out there. I’ve never seen so much stuff.”

The trash take was less than previous years, organizers said. One reason is that the cleanup was held earlier than usual, before the summer tourist season really builds. The state Department of Fish and Game also barred trash seekers from land areas where birds are nesting.

Most volunteers used fishing nets or rakes to pick up trash in the oily water, but Cannery owner Bill Hamilton puttered through the bay demonstrating his invention, the Water Rake--a converted catamaran he designed to suck up floating junk or even sick birds. He said he hopes to sell a revised model with an oil extractor to the city for $35,000.

“It really works!” said Bill Von Henkle, the cleanup’s chairman. “It picks up cigarettes and little tiny things. It’s amazing.”

Hamilton, 64, recalled childhood vacations spent in Newport when the bay was so clean that he had no qualms about swimming in it. Thoughtless visitors dumping trash in the harbor and in the streets whose gutters lead to the harbor have sometimes made it a watery junk pile, he said.

His restaurant sits at the end of the dead-end harbor where the trash winds up, lapping against the pilings for weeks, said Hamilton, who has spearheaded cleanup day for nine years. Not only is the trash an eyesore for customers, but it is damaging to birds and boats, he said.

Plastic is the worst, he said, because it “lasts forever.”

Another problem, workers said, is runoff containing fertilizers from nurseries upstream that has encouraged green moss to grow in the harbor. But cooperating nurseries that agreed to recycle their runoff have alleviated the problem, they said.

“The main idea is to get public awareness lifted so we don’t have to do it,” he said. This year, he said, the chamber will sponsor a second cleanup day sometime before Sept. 15, the start of a 10-day Seafest that is expected to draw 50,000 people.

The annual event has become a minor fund-raiser for the chamber as a result of financial donations from banks, home builders, businesses and community organizations, he said.

Hamilton said he plans to keep hosting cleanup days “until the bay is so clean we don’t need it anymore.” That day, he predicted, will probably never arrive.