09/20/2017
BMP Utilizes Trash to Trap Trash in the Tijuana River Valley
Alter Terra partners with County of San Diego, non-profit organization RCAC and the San Diego County Water Authority on IRWM Prop 84 Water Quality and Habitat Conservation Project funded by the California Department of Water Resources. The project will reduce trans-boundary trash flows into the U.S. by using trash collected at the source in Mexico.
Oscar Romo, of Alter Terra, shared a one-tenth scale prototype of his trash boom design with County staff on Wednesday at Smuggler’s Gulch Culvert in San Diego’s International Park. Each section of the floating trash capture device, or boom, will be equipped with metal mesh screening, and all of the pieces will be linked together and anchored to the banks of Smuggler’s flood control channel during the coastal storm season. A total of three booms will rest on the floor of the channel and will become buoyant as water, and trash originating from Tijuana, flows across the international border. Floating trash captured in the channel will be removed and transported to the landfill. The booms are a wildlife-friendly best management practice (BMP) designed to reduce the amount of plastic trash pollution that threatens sensitive wetland habitat in the Tijuana River Estuary, a Ramsar designated estuary of international importance. The device is designed to move like and resemble a snake and will look more like an art installation than a mitigation measure.
