The Surfrider Foundation

“…recognizes the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the planet's coasts are necessary and irreplaceable. SURFRIDER is committed to preserving natural living and non-living diversity and ecological integrity of the coastal environment.”

Furthermore, recent reports from the Pew Oceans Commission and the US Commission on Ocean Policy have confirmed what many of us have known from direct personal experience for years – our oceans are in trouble. Although we have made considerable progress in controlling point sources of pollution since the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972, billions of gallons per day of treated sewage are discharged from sewage treatment plants into our coastal waters every day. The full environmental effects of these discharges are only now beginning to be understood.

The problem of “non-point source” pollution is even more staggering, as billions of gallons of untreated “urban runoff” and drainage from agricultural operations either flows untreated to the ocean or is combined with sewer flows where it can cause a “combined sewer overflow”, releasing untreated sewage to the ocean or other receiving waters.

Therefore, Surfrider Foundation believes that we should have a zero tolerance for sewage discharges and the discharge of other human-induced pollutants to the ocean. The ocean is not a dump! From both a human health and an ecological health standpoint, the oceans are not only “necessary and irreplaceable”, but:

“America’s oceans and coasts are priceless assets. Indispensable to life itself, they also contribute significantly to our prosperity and overall quality of life. Too often, however, we take these gifts for granted, underestimating their value and ignoring our impact on them. Then our use of the oceans becomes abuse, and the productive capacity of our marine resources is diminished” (Introduction to US Commission on Ocean Policy report)

The oceans produce over 50% of the oxygen that sustains life on earth.

Our goal as stewards of our ocean planet should be not only to prevent further pollution of our oceans, but to restore ocean health to the baseline that existed before industrialization and urbanization decimated the resources that formerly existed.

Far from “using water wisely”, we greatly misuse water, causing environmental damage to the areas that are the sources of water, wasting those resources and then “throwing away” that resource after we have added pollutants that are harmful to humans and living marine resources.

We need to establish (reestablish) an “ocean ethic” that begins with a “water ethic” of conserving our precious water resources, keeping pollution out of our water, treating and reusing the wastewater that is produced, and mimicking (rather than fighting against) natural systems of water flow, retention and purification.

Surfrider Foundation’s Blue Water Campaign is a grassroots effort comprised of numerous local campaigns supported by thee entire Surfrider Foundation to protect and restore coastal water quality and to create a sustainable future environment for future generations.