Tampon (Photo : Heal the Bay/Twitter)
County health officials in Los Angeles closed two beaches because of tampons, hypodermic needles, condoms and other waste material washed ashore as well as excessive bacteria level.
The Washington Times reports that Dockweiler State Beach was closed on Wednesday and El Segundo Beach on Thursday. The 4-mile Dockweiler State Beach, located near the LA International Airport, had a lot of the waste products on its sand, while waste started to be washed up at El Segundo.
But the waste were not from beachgoers but possibly discharges from the Hyperion Treatment Plant owned by LA. Tonya Durrell, spokeswoman of the LA Sanitation District, estimates that health officials collected about 200 pounds of waste from the two beaches.
The Hyperion facility is supposed to capture solid waste, while the pipelines are designed to discharge only treated wastewater.
Hyperion brought back online the mile-long pipeline because a heavy storm strained the regular 5-mile pipeline. Durrell says that the waste may have been sitting inside the pipeline, and the heavy rain storm and the first flush by city workers must have pushed the waste out into the bay.
The solid waste flow has stopped and crews are working to reopen the two beaches as soon as possible.
The incident has led the environmental group Heal the Bay to express concern about what Hyperion is doing to prevent another spill, says Matthew King, the group's spokesman.
Leslie Griffin, also from Heal the Bay, observed people going out to the two beaches with their surfboards, which she points out is not a good idea, reports CBS.
