Flotsam AND Jetsam : Rains Wash Ashore Everything From Old Refrigerators to Rattlesnakes Along the Coast

When Earl and Sandee Simons arrived at the beach in Ventura the other day, theywere hard pressed to find a clean spot to plunk down their towels.

The problem was the 20-foot-wide layer of driftwood and other debris that washed out of the Santa Clara and Ventura rivers and up onto the shore.

“It’s as if the tributaries of all the rivers have puked into the ocean,” mused Earl Simons, a disabled oil field foreman.

From Santa Barbara south to San Diego, the unusual season of heavy storms has left an impressive residue on Southern California’s glistening sands--tons and tons of flotsam and jetsam, the likes of which have not been seen for more than a decade.

On many Ventura County beaches, piles of bamboo-like sticks are so thick that it looks as if a Pier 1 Imports warehouse exploded at seaside.

More than a month after the harshest rains, the coastline in Long Beach resembles a hay farm just after harvest, as city maintenance workers stack piles of driftwood and man-made debris that continue to spew out of the mouth of the Los Angeles River near the Queen Mary.

With Easter but a week away and summer looming as something more than an abstract concept, the debris is proving a daunting physical, fiscal and aesthetic challenge.

Some beach-goers, though, see the deluge of driftwood as a healthy sign that a whole lot of nature still remains in metropolitan Southern California.

“It makes you feel like you’re so far away from the city--it makes it so much more natural here,” said surfer Michael Creel, 24, as he shaded himself in an impromptu tepee made of tree branches and logs at Trestle, a venerated surfing beach near the border of Orange and San Diego counties.

Although the bulk of debris can be found on beaches in the vicinity of river and creek mouths, some has floated in the sea 10 to 20 miles before washing ashore.

Particularly mobile is arundo , a prolific bamboo-like giant reed that grows in large groves along stream beds in the Ventura and Malibu areas and has been found on the sand as far south as Hermosa Beach.

“It’s an exotic, invasive weed that has gone wild,” said marine biologist Susan Williams, who works as a Channel Islands National Park ranger. “With lots of rain, lots of the stuff grew last year. And with the rain this year, there has been a tremendous flow down the watersheds.”

Surfers seemed to be taking the invasion of floating obstacles in stride.

“Occasionally, you see a log cruising by and laugh and say: “Whoa, log, look out,” said Troy Peters, 23, after a morning in the waves at Surfer’s Knoll in Ventura. “I hit a half a tree, a big old huge branch. It broke a fin on my board. But I like the beach this way. I’m opposed to making the beach all perfect. You see the craziest wood formations. It’s real intense.”

The same day, Ventura Harbor beach-goers sifted through weathered driftwood for natural art or made use of cane-like branches for surfside baseball games. On the beach next to the Ventura County Fairgrounds, near a homeless encampment in the live arundo groves known as “Hobo Jungle,” two homeless Vietnam veterans improvised a game of their own--seaside ringtoss, employing a washed-up bicycle inner tube and a two-foot reed.

“We know this game from ‘Nam,” said one of the drifters, who said he goes by the name “The Preacher.” “We’re bored and so this keeps our morale high.”

Also boosting their spirits, The Preacher added, were the fresh oranges and lemons that were carried to sea from citrus groves along the Santa Clara River. “We pick ‘em off the beach to eat,” he said.

While the fallen fruit lent a festive color to the shore, several surfers at Ventura said it also stood as testimony to a silent repercussion of the storm season.

“God knows what kind of pesticides are washing out to sea,” said Craig Lane, 27, a restaurant manager from San Luis Obispo. “The pollution concerns me.”

In less developed areas of Orange County, the issue of agricultural runoff has been complemented by fears of rattlesnakes.

At San Clemente State Beach near the one-time Western White House of Richard Nixon, lifeguard Mike Broussard said he recently spotted a three-foot rattler.

“I wasn’t going to be a hero,” Broussard said. “I called the animal control people.”

At nearby San Onofre State Beach, a recent surfing contest was canceled when a participant noticed a live rattlesnake floating in the surf on a branch. And at Doheny State Beach off Dana Point, free driftwood is available for use as firewood--but consumers are warned to watch out for snakes when picking through the timber.

Clearly, though, the heaviest impact of this year’s storms has been on beaches that were forced to shut for several days because of pollutants streaming out of storm drains and overflow from sanitary sewage systems.

Moreover, the most lingering impact has been in the coastal communities of Long Beach, Seal Beach and Playa del Rey, which suffer the misfortune of abutting the mouths of the Los Angeles River, the San Gabriel River and Ballona Creek.

When the sun beats down on Dockweiler State Beach at Playa del Rey these days, the little bits of foam in the sand glisten as if they were mica.

“During each storm, it looks like white lilies are floating down the creek--it’s like a Styrofoam garden,” said artist Kelly Fein, as she sifted through the sand and refuse for seashells.

On a nearby jetty, fisherman Aaron Crawford, 46, said conditions remain dreadful in the water--at least if fish are the object of one’s desires. “I’ve caught plenty of plastic bags, T-shirts and all kinds of stuff,” said the Southern Pacific freight car worker.

The heavy storms have also helped create a large underwater buildup of sediment at the south entrance to the Marina del Rey channel. Last October, the Army Corp of Engineers spent $400,000 on a dragging project--but now the channel has shoaled up again.

At Seal Beach last week, the shoreline was more the consistency of mulch than sand because of the high content of pulpy debris washing ashore from the adjacent San Gabriel River.

“It’s not what they show on TV about Southern California,” said vacationing Portland, Ore., resident Sandy Eichstadt. “It’s pretty nasty here.”

Tractor operator John Ayala, 37, said the cleanup has been nonstop work. “Every time it seems like you can breathe a sigh of relief, it starts up again the next day.”

Nowhere has it been worse than in next-door Long Beach, where city officials say a staggering 8,000 tons of debris have washed to shore.

That is twice as much refuse as the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors picks up in an entire year along 31 miles of beaches from San Pedro’s Cabrillo Beach north to Zuma Beach. It is also twice as much debris as Long Beach has ever had to deal with before, said Long Beach parks and recreation manager Phil Hester.

“It’s probably going to cost a minimum of $500,000 to clean,” Hester said. “We anticipate it will be another month before we get all the debris off the beach.”

Hester said his crews have picked up refrigerators, 30-foot logs, cigarette butts, tires, plastic oil containers and dead dogs.

After sifting out the sand with a $75,000 machine, he said, trash haulers transport the refuse where it should have gone in the first place before tumbling down the Los Angeles River--the county dump.