Yeah much slower growth in the winter - standard service is a scrub every 4 weeks in winter, 3 in summer, so this is basically just skipping a cleaning; not the end of the world. Seems like a good experiment to see the impact on copper levels if they can get compliance.
Yeah, and if they can actually measure the difference. Which I highly doubt, given the realities of measuring the change in the presence of copper levels in an environment subject to so many competing variables (time, tide, sunlight, city water runoff, etc.)
The Port of San Diego has chased it's tail for decades debating water quality in SD Bay. Sadly, the science is lacking (Shelter Island Yacht Basin, for example, ISN'T a closed, laboratory system). And yes, it's all about politics, making the Port Commissioners look good to the knowledgeable public, all the while beating up on the recreational boaters yet again.
Question to the Port Commision: How do you differentiate the copper content in the Shelter Island Yacht Basin deposited by hull cleaning, vs. that abraded off every brake shoe in the county that finds its way to the Basin floor? And do you really think a sample size of 8 weeks (out of ???? many) is scientifically justifiable?
Maintaining environmental health of our ocean environment is obviously in ALL our best interests. There has been a vast improvement in the San Diego Bay water quality in the last 70 years I've hung around in it. Heck, in the 60's, you swam the breaststroke in southbay to push the brown bass out of the way before the Navy decided to hook up their ship's sanitation systems to shoreside sewage treatment while dockside.
But this latest effort seems like trying to pick the flysh$% out of the pepper, and to the detriment of OTHER marine systems (such as fuel burn) that will be degraded accordingly. Yes, 3 week cleanings in the summer to defeat the tube worms is necessary.
Regards,
Pete