Beach Cleanup

Re “Keeping Beaches Clean a Priority,” June 3.

I would like to say thank you to the people and groups involved in the cleanup. I am a commercial and sea urchin diver who has worked underwater in Southern California for 20 years.

On June 2, a gas line operated by Avera Petroleum Co. in the Ventura River flood plain broke, spewing benzene, methane and hexane. How do you clean up something like this? You do not. Fish die, the environment fails. Everything winds up in my workplace. This is just one example, practically meaningless in the big picture.

The next time you hear rhetoric about “overfishing” being the cause of decline among marine species, please take some time to realize that commercial fishermen are the only ones in the world economically dependent on the health of the ocean. We are victims on many levels. Global warming, pollution and loss of habitat--these are huge issues.

The next time you drive up highways 33 or 126 (along the Ventura or Santa Clara rivers) take a careful look. Whenever there is a respectable flow of water, the outfall reaches the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

So while cleaning up the beaches for a bunch of uninformed tourists may appear to be a solution, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we have any right to call ourselves environmentally conscious. The environment is failing annually; it is failing progressively. Scapegoating commercial fishermen will perpetuate one of the most important issues of our time: a failing environment.

DAN BRAINERD, Ventura