Medical Waste Found on a Carlsbad Beach This Time

Another batch of medical waste, including four syringes, washed up on a Carlsbad beach this week--marking the third time in recent weeks that such debris has fouled local shores, officials said Friday.

Three regular syringes, one with a capped needle attached, and a large-sized syringe were found in the sand, said Linda Miller, spokeswoman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, a member of the Hazardous Waste Task Force.

“I am beginning to think we should always be careful walking on the beaches,” Miller said. “This is pretty prevalent.”

The debris, which washed up along a 100-yard area of the beach between Carlsbad Boulevard and Airport Road, also included two prescription bottles. One bottle was issued by the pharmacy of the San Diego-based amphibious assault ship Okinawa. But Navy officials said the tie is a tenuous one.

“It’s like finding a Coca-Cola bottle and saying Coca-Cola is guilty of polluting our beaches,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Smallwood, spokesman for the Pacific Fleet’s surface force, a group of 173 ships that includes the Okinawa.

“If all this stuff had washed ashore in a bag with identifying marks, then it would be easy to say it was the Okinawa. But nobody can convince me that, just because they found a pill box that the Okinawa is dumping medical waste,” Smallwood said. “I know ships follow real special procedures in the way they dispose of trash, and the Okinawa is particularly careful.”

The other bottle, bearing a prescription to help prevent seasickness, was issued by a Beverly Hills pharmacy to a woman whose name is not being disclosed. A woman with the same name is assigned to Submarine Group 7, based in the Western Pacific region. Investigators do not yet know whether the prescription belongs to this enlisted individual or to another woman with the same name, said Chief Petty Officer Martin Wicklund, a Navy spokesman.

Diving tube apparatuses and a restaurant-sized spigot with a tube also washed ashore in the same area. Tracing the debris to a single source and determining whether it was illegally dumped has proven to be difficult. Naval Investigative Service agents are still grappling with clues, but Navy officials say they are less and less hopeful that they will find a culprit.

“We are just as frustrated as anybody, since we are residents here, too,” Wicklund said. “I like to take my kids walking on the beach, too.”

The Hazardous Waste Task Force, a group of 20 federal, state and local agencies that formed two years ago, will continue the investigation. Officials have not yet been able to determine whether this last batch of debris is linked to two others that washed ashore in May.

“It’s awfully hard to tell if it’s the same spill,” Miller said. “It does seem to come in waves. The thing we need to do is prove where it came from, and that is exceedingly difficult.”