The smell from hell wafting from La Jolla Cove is now \u2014 hopefully \u2014 a blast from the past.
\nThat is the hope of public officials who sanctioned spraying of microbial foam to eradicate foul odor from cliffs surrounding La Jolla Cove.
\nThe first phase of cliff spraying was completed after 10 days of work on June 28.
\nCove cliffs have become so saturated by bird excrement that they\u2019ve been declared an economic, health and safety emergency by Mayor Bob Filner.
\nFilner held a press conference June 17 to kick off Cove cleanup, then followed that up with a June 28 news release, in which he said the city\u2019s contractor, Blue Eagle Distribution, Inc., has been able to “substantially reduce odors related to bird guano deposits and has set the stage for an even more extensive second phase of the cleanup effort now set for early August.”
\n“This is a great success,” Filner said. “The odor is down and fun is back up in La Jolla.”
\nThe worsening smell of bird waste after years of build up at the Cove, heightened especially during the warmer summer tour- ist season, has led to growing unrest from residents and businesses in the area demanding public officials take action to quench the stench.
\nBill Harris, the city\u2019s supervising public information officer, said Blue Eagle crews “inched their way along the cliff face, applying the anti-odor material such that it did not run into the ocean, and in such a quantity as to have an impact on the odor.”
\nHarris described the odor-fighting product being used by Blue Eagle as “a collection of non-pathogen bacteria that digests the microbial fungus and chemicals that create the odor and the build up of guano.”
\nThe city\u2019s spokesman said the cleansing foam has proven results.
\n“It not only attacks those things that are stinky, but also has the benefit of reducing the thickness of the guano,” Harris said, adding the active organic foam ingredients “die and don\u2019t have any discharge into the water at all.”
\nKeith Merkel of Merkel & Associates, Inc., a marine biologist consulting the city on Cove cleanup, said odor eradication in the cliff area between the Cove and the Clam is being done in two phases this summer.
\n“Phase one is constrained by nesting birds, working around them covering all the areas we can without causing abandonment of nesting,” Merkel said. “Then we\u2019ll wait until nesting is finished the end of July or early August, and spend another 10 days cleaning the areas we couldn\u2019t get to before.”
\nThe results of the odor-eradication effort will be monitored to measure its effectiveness. What long-term strategy is to be employed afterward to preserve the status quo will then be determined.
\n“[Spraying] would have to be done two or three times a year,” Merkel said, adding there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty as to how effective the spraying will be \u2014 or how long it will last.
\n“This has been several years in the making and the birds aren\u2019t going to stop crapping on the rocks. It will continue,” he said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The smell from hell wafting from La Jolla Cove is now \u2014 hopefully \u2014 a blast from the past. That is the hope of public officials who sanctioned spraying of microbial foam to eradicate foul odor from cliffs surrounding La Jolla Cove. The first phase of cliff spraying was completed after 10 days of work […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":264874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Filner declares Cove cleanup a success","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}