Paragraphs by Paul Miller
One of the most visually attractive cities in the world--and world famous for it--has messed on itself for the past two years and has within the first few weeks of this New Year, done so again. It may not bother the residents, but anything alive around, or in the bay, is offended and also endangered by the stuff.
Sausalito needs diapers.
Last week the Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District--blaming a private contractor--inadvertently dumped another 40,000 gallons of raw sewage into the bay. Last year the total raw spillage out of Sausalito was 775,000 gallons. In 2008 there were thousands of gallons of raw flow from Sausalito's sewers in February and again in August. The fine for that year's spills was $1.6 million.
In Japan during the U.S occupation after World War II, most of the country towns had trails and roads that were paralleled by open ditches running with raw sewage. Not much of it ever polluted the ocean is my guess because it was gathered up by workers who carried it in wooden containers called "honey buckets" to farmers and gardeners for fertilizer.
No fertilizer at Sloat Garden Center across the street from Bacich Elementary School in Kentfield can come near the growing power of that stuff used in the late 1940's to grow Japan's produce. That human fertilizer forced white winter radishes called Daikon to happily distend into becoming plants almost as big as palm trees.
If Sausalito-Marin City Sanitary District continues in its untidy ways, the board members may find it prudent to use the city's unleashed sewage productively. Applying the that sewage as fertilizer, the district could grow palm trees as large as four-story apartment buildings. The district could easily and cheaply convert the giant trees into apartments and sell them for a high profit. That money could be used to pay the fines (the last one was $332,000) for the new spills that are sure to come this year and the next and the next.
It has been rumored that the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce is at least trying to find ways to assuage the spillage difficulties. The chamber will provide visitors who choose to swim, kayak or sail off its docks and beaches individual water pollution testing kits. And what about the gulls and seals and crabs? Wish them good luck, and wish them maybe even goodbye.
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Long time Marinite Paul Miller
was editorial cartoonist for the Marin IJ, sports cartoonist for the
Novato Advance, a cover cartoonist for the Pacific Sun, and is
currently a cartoonist illustrator for The Ark. He's had cartoons
published in the San Francisco Chronicle and his surf paintings have
been published on the Surfriders Foundation website. He joins MoreMarin
as a contributing editorial cartoonist.
Miller, a former Marine
and UCLA graduate, taught a cartooning course in the art department at
the College of Marin. His paintings and drawings are in private
collections in California, Arizona, Washington, Hawaii, Texas, Florida
and Provence, France. Miller's book, A Cartoonist's Guide to Prostate Cancer, was described by Dr. Dean Edell as "a must for any man facing prostate cancer!"
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