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Many of the world's best surf breaks occur where rivers meet the sea. But rivers carryall kinds of toxic waste, from industrial pollutants to septic tank leakage, from agricultural runoff rich in pesticides to storm drainage rich in motor oil. Flush that through your nasal pas- sages and see how you feel later in the day. In the United States, stories of water- borne illnesses are becoming increasingly com- mon. According to the Surfrider Foundation's "State of the Beach" report, the number of beach closures nearly doubled during 2001. California led the list with almost 6,000 clo- sures and warnings, twice the amount in 1999. Other states that received bad report cards were Delaware, Texas, Washington and Oregon. For a surfer who paddles out for a session in dirty dishwater, the consequences can be dire. Common maladies such as sinus and ear infections, colds and flus, and gas- trointestinal bacteria are no picnic and are just the tip of the iceberg. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) names a whole list of pathogens found in the surf zone, from cholera and salmonella to hepatitis and pol io. Not exactly what you want to take home after a surf session at your local spot. Just ask Chris O'Connel, a San Diego surfer who paddled out in Mission Bay last year. Chris had a cut on his arm, which became infected with the deadly streptococcus bacteria. Hospitalized and near death, it took two and a half weeks and three operations to save his life. Local surfers in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, are suffering yet another kind of river- related malady: lack of sand. At what they call the Mexican Pipeline, development has occurred so rapidly that many of the streams that once reached the beach during the rainy season are no longer carrying the sand they once did. Furthermore, to please the hordes of sunbathing tourists that flock there each winter, developers cleared the beach of a shrub so that more bare sand would be available to accommodate the growing number of coolers and umbrellas. They neglected to consider the consequences that might result from the ferocious waves that grind along its outer sandbars. The surfers noticed, however. Both these factors contri buted to the demise of Puerto's barrels. Beach breaks are a delicate balance of many natural factors-if you change one lit- tle thing, the wave might change too, often for the worse. Beach breaks like this depend upon a constant supply of sand, and without it the waves lose their shape and quality. In Puerto, the dunes along the beach have disappeared, and so have many of the sandbars. The waves no longer have the shape they once did. Lack of sand continues to be a major problem in many parts of the world. Chad Nelson, environmental director at Surfrider, says that "the choking of sand flow is responsi- ble for most of the (coastal) erosion in Southern California. " That's a pretty big statement, con- sidering that spending on coastal armoring proj- ects in Southern California has reached well into the billions of dollars. In Florida, top on the list for coastal armoring, over $1 billion has been spent on sand nourishment projects alone, covering just 100 miles of beach. That works out to $10 million per mile. So where has all the beach sand gone? It is lying dormant behind the hundreds of dams that have been built over the last 50 years. Dam-building, particularly in the Western CONTINUED ON PAGE 79