San Diego’s law-driven stench problem: Dickens was right

In fall 2012, The New York Times shared a pathetic San Diego story with the nation. The piece was headlined “California Cove Blessed With Nature’s Beauty Reels From Its Stench.” Sample:
“In beautiful La Jolla Cove, art galleries and coffee shops meet a stretch of unspoiled cliffs and Pacific Ocean. Home to former presidential candidates (Mitt Romney has been spotted pumping his own gas here in recent days) and seal colonies alike, the neighborhood provides one of this city’s primary tourist draws.
“But the smell, a pungent stench that emanates from the accumulation of bird feces on the rocks, has become a growing problem. And strict environmental regulations in the cove have stymied the city’s efforts to address the problem before it drives tourists and businesses away, effectively roping the rocks off with red tape.
“’I’ve lived here my whole life, and the smell from the birds has never, ever been as bad as it is now,’ said Megan Heine, the owner of Brockton Villa Restaurant, which overlooks the cove from a historic building that has been on the cliffs for more than 100 years. She said guests asked about the stench so frequently that her wait staff had become adept at explaining its cause.
“’If nothing is done and the smell becomes unbearable, I’m fearful of what that will really do to the business and the appeal of being in La Jolla,’ she said.”
An indictment of the stupidity of our government
Guess what? The problem is still horrible. I wrote about it in today’s U-T San Diego.
“Of all the advances achieved by the Roman Empire before its collapse in the fifth century, one of the most unprecedented was the infrastructure to ensure the efficient removal of animal and human waste from urban areas.
“Incredibly enough, some 1,600 years later, a city that is home to some of the most advanced scientific research on Earth finds itself unable to deal with disgusting conditions triggered by waste from seals, sea lions, pelicans, seagulls and other birds.
“That is the proper context with which to see the maddening saga of the stench emanating from the rocky areas and cliffs at La Jolla Cove. It has been 13 months since a New York Times story laid bare for the nation not just our local shame but the collapse of common sense in the Golden State — the idiocy of environmental rules so rigid and so far-reaching that removal of animal feces is somehow classified as a threat to nature.
“The odor problem ebbed for a time, but now it is back — a nauseating pall on an otherwise beautiful part of San Diego. And this time, it has prompted a lawsuit by the owners of the nearby La Valencia Hotel and George’s at the Cove, who argue — correctly — that city officials haven’t done enough to fix this stomach-turning problem.
“But that’s also true of state and federal regulators who pronounce themselves unable to act with any sort of urgency. If state and federal law governing nature is so all-powerful that it prevents the removal of animal waste from areas densely populated by humans, then, as a Charles Dickens’ character said, the law is an ass.”
Does anyone defend the bureaucratic sclerosis here? Can anyone with a straight face argue that it makes sense?
I didn’t think so.
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The RAGWUS is a collection of fools drawn to bureaucracies that drag common sense and reason to the bottom, it is devoid of any rational process. 🙂
It just makes me laugh. These same liberals promote all these laws to save the sea lions, save the water fowl, save the otters, save this and save that…which is all fine and well. I happen to love all the little creatures that God put on this planet too and wish them no harm. The difference between me and a liberal is that I am willing to tolerate their stink for the enjoyment and beauty that they give us. Whenever I take a drive in the countryside I smell cow waste too. But I don’t complain about it or protest the dairy farms. I guess nobody told the liberals that animals poop too! lol. Now with all the species protection and environmental laws the animal population has grown and saturated La Jolla with sea lions and water fowl. So now the liberals protest the unintended consequences that they should have thought about when they demanded more animal rights. It’s really hard to please a liberal. Let the animals poop and be merry! lol.
One fire truck could hose all the muck into the ocean in an afternoon. Do it on an outgoing tide during a storm, absolutely no one will be the wiser. And why not? At least it’s natural animal poo, not the 150-200 million gallons a day of untreated municipal wastewater that are dumped into the kelp beds from Point Loma….With the blessings of the very righteous environmental honchos…Or the Tijuana River, a nightmare of trash and raw sewage that flows unimpeded into the precious marine environment ’cause it would be racist to insist the Mexican government actually do something about it. Oy vay!
During the rainy season most of the beaches in SD County south of the Imperial Beach pier are strictly off limits due to the toxic levels of stench, sewage and debris that flows unchecked from Mexico down the TJ river into the ocean and onto American soil. So not only do we have to tolerate their non-stop flow of illegal indigents who violate our borders and use our taxpayer funded social services for free – we have to tolerate their human body wastes and debris on our beaches. Go down to Imperial Beach after a nice rain storm with an onshore wind and take a deep breath. lol. Why don’t the liberals complain about that? If the mexican economy is doing so well why can’t they keep their sewage in their own country?
And here I thought San Diego’s stench problem was caused by former mayor Bob “Filthy” Filner. I learn something new every day thanks to CWD.
Nice!! Colageno em capsula