Mystery Goo Suspect #1--a Seawall Sewer Job

"There's yellow and black barrier tape in the bottom of the trench. Is/was there an ongoing investigation (other than mine)?"

The bid document  for a seawall sewer line replacement adjacent to Alameda's finger lagoons provides clues to how a massive amount of drilling mud could have gotten into San Francico Bay via the lagoons causing the January, 2015, massacre of 300 seabirds.

Following are illustrations relating to the seawall sewer line replacement project mentioned in my April 18 post "Mystery Bird Goo Matches Drilling Mud."

This project is the most likely source of the Mystery Goo uncovered so far because of the close proximity of the project to the lagoons and the likelihood the project entailed the use of a drilling mud matching the Mystery Goo's lab results.

Here's the quote from the bidding document:

"5. Installation of sewer pipe by horizontal directional drilling of +- 91 LF of 8" sewer main between two manholes in close proximity to existing homes using front steer guided bore and jack method with steel bend VCP. Install new sewer manhole and rehabilitate existing sewer manhole with epoxy/cement like coating on Hawthorne Street." 

Hawthorne Street is a few blocks west of Paru Street, where another part of the sewer project takes place. These photos concentrate on a Paru Street trench scaled down in dimensions and depth from a directional drilling project I observed last summer at the opposite end of Grand Avenue for pulling power conduit under the Estuary to Coast Guard Island.

The ten-inch sewer pipe mentioned in the bid document appears in the distance behind the fence bordering Grand Avenue (Image 3a.) The proximity of the sewer line to the lagoon is evident. Drilling near that pipe would risk leakage of drilling mud into the lagoon.

(Click photo to enlarge)

 Image 3b shows the scale of this western  section of the network of finger lagoons. (You can "drill down" with Google Maps for a broader perspective on these finger lagoons.)

Image 3c gives a closer view of the rusty ten-inch pipe shielded from the elements by a roof of rusted corrugated tin. The large red round structure is a pumping station scheduled for replacement as part of the project. Has this portion been delayed? Why?

Image 3d is a cose-up of the pipe from the opposite side of the chain-link fence where Paru Street dead-ends at the lagoon.. Note the white arrow spray-painted along the fence, perhaps to show workers the direction to drill.

Image 3e shows a trench covered with a thin sheet of plywood. As mentioned above, this trench is similar in dimensions and depth to the trench in the CGI drilling project completed last summer. A collapsed "City of Alameda" safety barrier sign lies flat at the far end of the trench.

Image 3f is a close-up of the trench with the city sign arranged for ease of reading. Drilling would have begun just below the left "toe" of the sign and made a left turn toward Grand Avenue, as the white arrow indicated.

The following Youtube link illustrates a drilling method similar to the one specified in the bid document: (Click here for video illustrating a similar drilling project.) Note the drilling fluid being released through the drill bit. Guided directional drilling can be accomplished with a variety of equipment, but it's a well-established technology.


These photos raise as many questions as they answer, but they suggest that drilling occurred here and that the City was involved. Fresh grass has begun growing on adjacent piles of loose fill dirt. The City sign, the apparent age of the of the trench, the trench's proximity to the lagoon seawall and the specification of "directional drilling" in the bid document all imply this trench could have had something to do with the sewer line replacement project.

The dirt at the far end of the trench was quite damp, while the uphill portion was dry. This indicates the seawall is not sealed if lagoon water can seep into the trench and that drilling fluid could have seeped through into the lagoon.


Why has the trench remained open all this time? Why is an unsafe trench left exposing passersby to injury? Did the contractor(s) drill at the wrong location? Was there a miscommunication or was this an approved test outside the scope of the sewer replacement project? There is yellow and black barrier tape in the bottom of the trench. Is/was there an ongoing investigation (other than mine)? If so, what were the findings and conclusions?

A forgotten trench at the end of a dead-end street.

The mystery continues.


Incidentally, below are a couple of photos I took of a snowy egret just below the culvert mentioned at the beginning of this article. Note the familiar grey smudge on its head. Five months after the first bird deaths, the goo keeps showing up.

 

Alameda's Tidal Curse

The Sludge Could Have Returned Dozens, if not Hundreds of Times

"What I found sent a chill up my spine.  ...Like a toilet flushing backward, the "bad stuff" kept returning. Alameda's Tidal Curse was a death trap for marine life."

Someone asked, "If the sludge you saw in October was the Bird Goo, how could it take from October to January, ten weeks, to kill the seabirds?"

To answer that question I studied tidal charts for October 12, 2014, the day I observed and reported the plume of sludge. What I found sent a chill up my spine.

The sludge took 3 1/2 hours (from 2:40 to 6:10) to transit from the south shore lagoon portal to just beyond the Park Street bridge. It had twice that distance to cover before tide changed at 9:21. It took the entire six-hour tidal cycle for the sludge to arrive at the mouth of the Oakand-Alameda Estuary, then the gooey mess would have been drawn right back up the same Estuary by the powerful ship channel current--BACK INTO SAN LEANDRO BAY WHERE SEABIRDS WERE ROOSTING FOR THE NIGHT!

Then the tide reversed again, and the process was repeated! For weeks, the deadly sludge I saw would have been transported back and forth along the Estuary between San Francisco Bay and San Leandro Bay, dousing hundreds of migrating seabirds again and again with layer after layer of toxic goo. (See illustration below, Image 1fx)

(click to enlarge photo)

Path of Sludge Ploom

Given the strength of the tide in the Estuary and the distance and speed of the tidewaters, whatever is carried out from San Leandro Bay is most likely to return on the next incoming tide. Then the process is repeated, endlessly.

Like a toilet flushing backward, the "bad stuff" kept returning. Alameda's Tidal Curse was a death trap for marine life.

The sludge's mass gradually diminished over time as some got deposited along the shoreline and bits were carried out into San Francisco Bay. But how long did that take, how many cycles? And how toxic were/are the residues to the seaweed and other marine life (fishes, barnacles, mussels, shrimps, crabs?)

San Leandro Bay's formerly robust marine life is feeding habitat for thousands of seabirds and their entire food chain. As food supply diminishes, so goes the seabird population.


The streaks of foam I saw April 12 (See Continuing Evidence of a Lethal Surfactant), if they are remnants of the initial October 2014 plume, could have returned hundreds of times during the intervening six months.

Migrant seabirds came here to fatten up for their return flight north, only to be drenched daily with a mixture of viscous chemical compounds we now know to be drilling mud (click here for April 19 blog identifying the Goo as drilling mud) and a lethal surfactant that got pushed farther and farther inland with each cycle.

Each successive dousing of surfactant would deposit another layer, to the point where death from hypothermia would result. A surfactant that might normally be considered harmless in a single dose would be lethal. (Click here for a detailed explanation of surfactants.)


Due to this Tidal Curse phenomenon, massive and lasting damage has likely been wreaked on the Estuary and San Leandro Bay as the tides have come and gone and layer after layer of toxic chemicals were deposited on rocks and seaweed and all forms of marine life and habitat, from pilings to bird feathers.

The chemical properties of a surfactant make it the ultimate toxin in a marine environment because surfactant molecules seek always to get between water and on-aqueous matter. Since essentially no marine life or habitat can escape a surfactant, its killing power is incalculable.

Meet the Victims of the Mystery Goo Seabird Massacre

Empty Air

Beautiful creatures
caked with sludge,

unable to forage or fly,

shivering among the rocks and reeds

for hours until they die.

In the winter months, San Leandro Bay becomes a haven for thousands of migrating flocks, from Canada, Alaska, wherever the compass needle points north. They come because it's warm and wet and there's food. They must restore body fat for their return in spring.

Imagine these beautiful creatures threatened by careless or uninformed municipal workers whose focus is only on keeping lagoon water clear and safe. "Those birds are really pretty resilient," one recently said.

This is the scenario that I believe led to the toxic spill I and a friend witnessed and tried to report. Week's later hundreds of waterfowl like these were dead or injured. This blog attempts to link these two events and show how it happened, to help guide the efforts of investigative agencies like California Fish and Wildlife, Cal-EPA and the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Most of the affected birds were surf scoters, buffleheads, coots and grebes, all of the birds pictured frequent the areas where the lethal "grey goo" did its damage--concentrated in the waters surrounding Alameda Island.

We must find out who did this and hold them accountable. For if we don't, it can happen again.

(click photos to enlarge)

Great blue heron (click to enlarge)

Avocet

Bufflehead

Goldeneye

Surf scoter

Greater scaup

Snowy egret

Horned grebe

Western grebe

Night Heron

Loon

Stilts

Snowy plover

Black-bellied plover

Brown pelican

Coot

Common tern

Clapper rail (c/o Wikipedia)

Surf scoter (male)

Photo Essay Tracking Alameda's Toxic Spill

"... a mixture of non-petroleum-based fats or oils. Non-petroleum oils include synthetic oils, such as silicone fluids, tung oils, and wood-derivative oils such as resin/rosin, animal fats and vegetable oils."

On a sunny Sunday October afternoon, a friend and I spotted plume of grey sludge, as we sat on a south-facing bench on San Leandro Bay near the Martin Luther King Jr Regional Shoreline. High tide was just beginning to ebb as I noticed an unusual right-to-left motion on the water in the distance. The air was warm and still. Hardly a cloud. The water was like mercury except for that curious movement that I kept noticing as we intently engaged in conversation about the books we are both writing about orphans and orphanages. I had seen movement like this before when I was a boy of 17 fishing for gar on the Trinity River in Texas, upstream of a sewage pipe. But that didn't register at the time.

A good deal of time passed as the restless indistinct mass crept toward us while we talked. Steam vapors rose from it as it curled around the eastern tip of Alameda Island and picked up speed. I looked at my watch. It was ten after four.

Eventually the undulating mass was close enough to make out its gelatinous consistency and a greyish color I had never seen in nature. Entrapped bits of debris bobbed and weaved. We stopped talking, hypnotized, as the mass of sludge rode the gathering current into the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. It was like being in a Sci-fi flick. "What the hell is this?" I said. "It can't be normal."

That was October 12, 2014. By the following mid-January, a massive seabird kill concentrated near Alameda was being reported in the news. The cause--a "Grey Goo of unknown origin."

Below (Image 1c) is the bench where we sat when we first noticed the plume.

Alarmed now, we stood and followed from the bike trail on the Oakland side of the estuary as the accelerating sludge headed toward the High Street Bridge, hugging the far shoreline where the current was strongest. Below is a map (Image 1e) showing in red the plume's path that we observed between 3:45 and 6PM on the Sunday the Raiders were getting clobbered by the Chargers last year.

Image 1d was taken in March, 2015, from a few hundred yards north and east of the Vantage Point bench to show the Otis Street/Bay Farm Bridge hidden from view in Image 1c. Notice the abundance of sea fowl. It's a mixture of surf scoters, grebes and stilts.

San Leandro Bay is a treasure of sea bird life that is severely threatened by effluent from not just Alameda's lagoons. Four natural estuaries drain street run-off here, as shown in the following Image 1w.

AN ECOLOGICAL DEAD ZONE? The Google Maps drill-down at right (Image 1n) shows an apparent ecological "dead zone" delta on Alameda's southern shoreline surrounding the Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary. Note the darker coloration compared relative to the healthy shoreline due east of the dock connected to Weir #1 in the tail of the lagoons.

Also note the three storm sewer outlets due west of the dock. This area shows the ecological effects of a concentration of street run-off from these three sources plus the discharges from the lagoon portal. YES, the lagoons capture run-off from storm sewers. People have been known to toss kitchen grease in the lagoons as well as used cat litter, all of which are illegal.

This discoloration shows that tidal marsh recyclers (mollusks, worms, crustaceans, etc.) are having a hard time keeping up with processing the city's organic output.



At left is the dock referred to above in Image 1n. Beneath the dock is the lagoon portal into San Francisco Bay from a pipeline leading from Weir #1.

Note the Otis Street/Bay Farm Bridge visible in the distance. Beyond the bridge is San Leandro Bay, where the plume of sludge was noticed by my friend and I.

This is a frontal view of the dock viewed from the south, across the channel. Below the dock is the lagoon portal "Rectangular Orifice" of the pipeline to Weir #1.

The Rectangular Orifice at left is the most probable source of the sludge, but proving so requires laboratory analysis of samples from the grey-green moustache and surrounding area to compare with samples of the Mystery Goo reported in news media since mid-January.

Cal Fish and Wildlife have taken samples for this purpose.

At right is a view (Image 1g) from within the finger lagoons at the end of the "tail," showing Weir #1, indicated by the arrow.

A weir is any device within a body of water that controls or influences the flow.