"One recent August morning, the sun was just rising when I was up and out the door of my apartment, heading to the Oakland estuary. Not everyone would be excited to get up at "oh-god-thirty" to tromp out to the bay's shoreline and strap themselves to a wobbly paddleboard to hunt down piles of garbage. But as an environmental reporter and water nerd, I was pumped."
"I arrived at the Jack London Aquatic Center, a public dock off the Embarcadero, to meet up with my guide for the day, Mary Spicer, the founder of I Heart Oakland-Alameda Estuary, a nonprofit group that has been targeting estuary debris for nearly a decade. Spicer, in a bright pink shirt and a broad straw hat, was chatting casually with an Oaklandside editor, Darwin BondGraham, who planned to join us in his kayak along with our photographer, Estefany Gonzalez."
An early August morning began with volunteers launching from the Jack London Aquatic Center into the Oakland estuary on paddleboards and kayaks to hunt visible and submerged garbage. Previous large-scale cleanups by agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers had suggested progress, but direct inspection revealed more extensive hazardous waste and marine debris concealed just beneath the surface and slipping past uneven enforcement. Mary Spicer, founder of I Heart Oakland-Alameda Estuary, has focused on removing estuary debris for nearly a decade alongside local volunteers. Calm, low-tide conditions expose submerged trash but recurring contamination and enforcement gaps persist.
Read at The Oaklandside
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