Anheuser Busch’s SeaWorld Adventure Park announced Sunday, Aug. 20 its intention to stop its “Summer Nights” fireworks displays until they determine whether or not a discharge permit from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board is necessary. Results could change water quality requirements for firework displays statewide.
The decision to cease firework displays was made in response to San Diego Coastkeeper’s 60-day Notice of Intent (NOI) to bring litigation to enforce the Clean Water Act’s mandate that a permit be obtained for displays that release potentially dangerous chemicals into Mission Bay.
The firework displays, which typically run around 9:50 p.m. every night from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, started in 1968 and are among the 120 or so firework displays SeaWorld puts on each year.
“We have never been required or requested to have a permit by the water board,” said Dave Koontz, public relations director for SeaWorld San Diego. ” But in light of the NOI, we decided that the most appropriate action was to ask the Quality Water Control Board to determine if a permit is required.”
In order to determine if a permit is needed, SeaWorld must fill out an application for the permit, which the water board will evaluate, Koontz said.
Bruce Reznick, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper, says that it comes down to regulatory laziness.
“We’ve talked to agency officials and basically they said they’ll process a permit once it comes to them,” Reznick said. “But they are not going to be pro-active in ensuring there is a permit. I think it is an abdication of their responsibility. They need to be held accountable for that failure.”
Coastkeeper filed their NOI, because they felt it was time to force action without the water board, the message of getting a permit was falling on deaf ears and they decided that enough was enough, Reznick said.
Reznick said that dangerous chemicals, such as cadmium, arsenic, chromium, mercury, lead and zinc, found in fireworks could be hazardous for Mission Bay, as well as paper trash from the firework casing.
Koontz guarantees that none of these chemicals are found in SeaWorld’s fireworks. He also described SeaWorld’s five-year-old monitoring program, which works closely with Science Applications International Corporations, a leading system, solutions and technical services company in San Diego.
The program analyzes water and sediment of Mission Bay near the fireworks display. Another part of the program is to sweep the area around the firework barge to pick up any possible paper debris that may have fallen into the bay. The morning after consists of a sweep of south Fiesta Island and the beach on the north side of the SeaWorld property, Koontz said.
“The reports of the analysis are submitted to the water board, California Coastal Commission and a variety of other agencies,” Koontz said, “to date, those monitoring efforts have detected absolutely no adverse impact to Mission Bay.
While both Coastkeeper and the Regional Water Quality Control Board agree that at this time there is no adverse impact on Mission Bay, they insist that does not mean it could not be an issue in the future.
The water board Executive Director John Robertus said Mission Bay has poor circulation and is very shallow, and with over 100 fireworks displays from a barge in the same location, it may be the case that over time pollutants from the fireworks and propellants and the display charges themselves, build up.
"SeaWorld may be doing everything they can to minimize the impact of the fireworks on Mission Bay, and the best way to know that for sure is to get a permit,” Reznick said. “We’re not even looking at fireworks as a source of pollution. My hope and expectation is that in the next few years we are going to see firework displays over waterways getting permits. That’s the only way we can get a handle on that.”
Robertus said that one possible outcome is that the state board may decide that fireworks are an issue all over the state, if that happens the state board would create a state-wide permit specific to firework discharges over water.
SeaWorld plans to have their permit application submitted as soon as possible.
The process will not be done quickly, requiring scientific investigation and review. It should take about 3-6 months before the water board actually takes action in resolving the issue, Robertus said.