• Support
  • Advertise
  • Locations
  • Contact
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTERS
San Clemente Times
  • Calendar
    • Event Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Sections
    • Eye on SC
    • Soapbox
      • Submit a Letter
    • Getting Out
    • SC Living
    • Sports & Outdoors
    • SC Surf
    • Dana Point Times
    • Capistrano Dispatch
  • Digital Edition
  • Best of SC
  • Explore SC
  • Legals & Classifieds
    • Locals Only Business Directory
    • Classifieds
    • Submit a Classified
    • Obituaries
    • Announcements
    • Submit an Announcement
    • Legal & Public Notice Advertising
  • Special Publications
    • A New You
    • Aging Well – For the Young at Heart
    • Best of San Clemente
    • Crib to College
    • Festival of Whales Event Program
    • Go See Do
    • Good Eats
    • Holiday Happenings & Gift Guide
    • Money Matters
    • San Clemente Trolley Route Map
    • Summer Camp Guide
    • Swallows Day Parade & Mercado Event Guide
    • The Green Issue
    • Triton Football Preview
  • SC Guide
  • Real Estate
    • South County Real Estate Guide
    • Real Estate – Who’s Who
  • Calendar
    • Event Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Sections
    • Eye on SC
    • Soapbox
      • Submit a Letter
    • Getting Out
    • SC Living
    • Sports & Outdoors
    • SC Surf
    • Dana Point Times
    • Capistrano Dispatch
  • Digital Edition
  • Best of SC
  • Explore SC
  • Legals & Classifieds
    • Locals Only Business Directory
    • Classifieds
    • Submit a Classified
    • Obituaries
    • Announcements
    • Submit an Announcement
    • Legal & Public Notice Advertising
  • Special Publications
    • A New You
    • Aging Well – For the Young at Heart
    • Best of San Clemente
    • Crib to College
    • Festival of Whales Event Program
    • Go See Do
    • Good Eats
    • Holiday Happenings & Gift Guide
    • Money Matters
    • San Clemente Trolley Route Map
    • Summer Camp Guide
    • Swallows Day Parade & Mercado Event Guide
    • The Green Issue
    • Triton Football Preview
  • SC Guide
  • Real Estate
    • South County Real Estate Guide
    • Real Estate – Who’s Who
No Result
View All Result
San Clemente Times
No Result
View All Result

CoastLines: We’re famous! Our pier is No. 1! Or is it Number Two?

Staff by Staff
July 11, 2019 6:15AM
in Opinion Columns, SOAPBOX
CoastLines: We’re famous! Our pier is No. 1! Or is it Number Two?

This bathing advisory sign greeted morning visitors arriving at the San Clemente Pier on the 3rd of July. Photo: Fred Swegles

0
SHARES
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By Fred Swegles

You may want to ask our pier’s prolific pigeons which one it is.

The city is doing a DNA-based study to try to pinpoint the sources of tainted ocean water that led the environmental group Heal the Bay to name our illustrious San Clemente Pier 2019’s most polluted bathing beach in California.

Is it from pigeon droppings? Or maybe from a pair of storm drain pipes that deposit urban runoff onto the shore under the pier? Could it be leaks in an underground sewer line that runs up the coast by the railroad tracks? Or something else?

Whatever the cause, how are you supposed to react when your town is suddenly named the most Royal Heinous, of all Places Heinous, on Heal the Bay’s “Beach Bummer” List?

Do you get angry? Run as far away as you can from this epicenter of environmental infamy? Or embrace this unsavory accolade and squeeze some fun out of it?

I like Number Three.

My first thought was to print up some “Welcome to our Pier . . . We’re No. 1!” T-shirts, picturing a contented pigeon squirting one of the OC Health Department’s “no swimming” signs beside our pier.

Or, our T-shirt could picture a pigeon drinking from one of the storm drain pipes beneath the pier. My guess is, pigeons and pipes are the most likely suspects.

We’re great at organizing parades. Why don’t we do one to celebrate our pier winning a state title? We could march down Del Mar to the pier, singing and dancing.

I propose some parody lyrics for the Beach Boys’ Top 10 hit, “Be True to Your School.” If you don’t know the tune, it’s on YouTube.

A pigeon sips from one of two storm drain pipes that deposit urban runoff onto the beach beneath the San Clemente Pier. Photo: Fred Swegles
A pigeon sips from one of two storm drain pipes that deposit urban runoff onto the beach beneath the San Clemente Pier. Photo: Fred Swegles

When some loud braggart tries to put me down

And says his pier is great

I tell him right away

What’s the matter buddy 

Ain’t you heard of our pier

We’re number one in the state

 

Be true to our pier now

Just like you would to your girl or guy

Be true to your pier

Just watch that pigeon poop fly

Be true to your pier

 

I got my letterman’s jacket, from Heal the Bay

It’s got a big letter P (I’m proud to wear it)

Just thank our pier Pigeons, and the under-pier Pipes,

Now you can call us Pee-Pee

 

So be true to our pier now

We’re number one on the Beach Bummer list

Be true to our pier

San Clemente’s the best

Be true to our pier (rah rah rah)

 

On Friday we’ll be ready for the Beach Train to come

Tourists raring to swim (we’re gonna show ’em now)

Check out those health department ‘no swimming’ signs

Our badge of honor again

 

Be true to our pier (rah rah rah)

———————————————————————————————————————

Although the city installed netting beneath the pier in 2018 as a pigeon deterrent from shore out to Lifeguard Tower Zero, the wide end of the pier, over land, isn't netted. Photo: Fred Swegles
Although the city installed netting beneath the pier in 2018 as a pigeon deterrent from shore out to Lifeguard Tower Zero, the wide end of the pier, over land, isn’t netted. Photo: Fred Swegles

A BIT OF HISTORY

1991: City hires a contractor to humanely control pier’s pigeon population, slipping a birth control chemical into birdseed to be released on the pier. The next day, 123 pigeons drop dead. Oops, wrong birdseed chemical. City, horrified, cancels program.

1992: City’s ban on sale of birdseed at the Bait & Tackle Shop reduces revenue, but lifeguards say it also helped sustain a lower pigeon population . . .  they estimate only 100 to 150 pigeons, not the former 400.

1993: Pigeon population begins to recover. Looks like visitors’ snack foods and trash are as tasty as birdseed was.

1996: Glenn Roy, city’s delegate on OC Vector Control Board, asks the pest control agency to convince Caltrans to net the undercarriage of the I-5 bridge over El Camino Real so pigeons can’t roost, posing a health hazard to pedestrians.

Sometime later: Caltrans, unable to scare away pigeons by posting fake owls on I-5 bridge, nets the substructure. End of problem.

2009: City Council establishes $50 fine for feeding pigeons on pier. Councilmembers consider hiring a falconer to make pigeons feel unwelcome on pier. Council takes no action.

2010: City proposes spending $223,678 to wrap the pier’s undercarriage with netting to take away pigeons’ nesting place. On a 3-2 vote, councilmembers say no; it’s too costly.

2017: City budgets $164,400 to net the pier’s undercarriage just from shore to Lifeguard Tower Zero. Heal the Bay ranks the pier No. 2 on its dreaded Beach Bummer List.

2018: Netting is installed, putting about one-fourth of the 1,300-foot pier’s undercarriage off-limits to pigeons. Pier doesn’t make Heal the Bay’s infamous Top 10.

2019: Pier returns to the Beach Bummer list, now No. 1. City forms a committee, launches DNA-based source studies, to seek answers.

Fred Swegles is a longtime San Clemente resident with more than 46 years of reporting experience in the city. Fred can be reached at fswegles@picketfencemedia.com.

 

 

 

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Tags: bacteriaBeach Bummer ListFeaturedFred SweglesOrange CountypollutionSan Clemente Pier
ShareTweetPin
Staff

Staff

Related Posts

SCHS Drama Excels, Wins Awards for ‘Phantom of the Opera’ Production

SCHS Drama Excels, Wins Awards for ‘Phantom of the Opera’ Production

June 6, 2023
‘By-the-Wind Sailors’ Wash Ashore on Southern California Beaches

‘By-the-Wind Sailors’ Wash Ashore on Southern California Beaches

June 6, 2023
Falling Debris from Casa Romantica Prompts Train Service Suspension Through San Clemente

Falling Debris from Casa Romantica Prompts Train Service Suspension Through San Clemente

June 5, 2023
Assistance League Provides Scholarships to Local Graduating Seniors

Assistance League Provides Scholarships to Local Graduating Seniors

June 2, 2023
Next Post
Report Finds Rampant Noncompliance among MPs in Responding to Domestic Violence Calls on Base

La Tiendita Closes, but Two Café del Sols Remain

Discussion about this post

No Result
View All Result

SC Times Daily
Get important news and updates delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here.

Subscriptions
Don’t get the SC Times delivered to your home? Subscribe today.

Advertising
Get new customers and drive traffic to your business. Advertise with us.

Support Local Journalism
For less than the cost of a couple of cups of coffee a month, become an “Insider” member and continue to get “Local News You Can Use” from the only independently owned, dedicated local news organization in South Orange County.

Contribute today.

Picket Fence Media is a proud member of the SoCal Media Network.

  • Archive
  • Contact Us
  • Dana Point Times
  • The Capistrano Dispatch
  • Terms of Use
  • About Us

© 2023 Picket Fence Media

No Result
View All Result
  • Calendar
    • Event Calendar
    • Submit an Event
  • Sections
    • Eye on SC
    • Soapbox
      • Submit a Letter
    • Getting Out
    • SC Living
    • Sports & Outdoors
    • SC Surf
    • Dana Point Times
    • Capistrano Dispatch
  • Digital Edition
  • Best of SC
  • Explore SC
  • Legals & Classifieds
    • Locals Only Business Directory
    • Classifieds
    • Submit a Classified
    • Obituaries
    • Announcements
    • Submit an Announcement
    • Legal & Public Notice Advertising
  • Special Publications
    • A New You
    • Aging Well – For the Young at Heart
    • Best of San Clemente
    • Crib to College
    • Festival of Whales Event Program
    • Go See Do
    • Good Eats
    • Holiday Happenings & Gift Guide
    • Money Matters
    • San Clemente Trolley Route Map
    • Summer Camp Guide
    • Swallows Day Parade & Mercado Event Guide
    • The Green Issue
    • Triton Football Preview
  • SC Guide
  • Real Estate
    • South County Real Estate Guide
    • Real Estate – Who’s Who

© 2023 Picket Fence Media