OCEANIC... CLEAN UP YOUR STINKY, MESSY DUMPSTER

 Beautiful Early Morning      

           Yesterday morning was a great opportunity for a bike ride down South Lumina to the end and back. Finally a morning without a thunderstorm,  no in-your- face Southeast sea breeze and body hugging humidity.

Beach bikes a must have at WB
copyright Noah Bridges

            Car traffic was fairly light and unobtrusive to our journey. The occasional biker athlete in training ("ironman-iac"), blew passed us with abandon. No worries we had plenty of road to share. How do they tolerate those spartan bike seats,,,aaaah numbing cream perhaps!

Checking and sampling the local Fig Crop

              Our South Lumina sojourn gives us a chance to check the numerous fig trees we pass along the way. Not much left of this year's crop. But gosh they were good and plenty up till a few weeks ago. Funny thing about people who have fig trees... they don't seem to pick much of their own figs. They leave quite a few to over ripen. After passing by these specimens time and again it dawned on us that they must depend on passersby to do their harvesting. Well you don't need to pinch us twice. You know those dog poop bags placed at the street ends are exactly the same size as fig bags!

Fig Tree at south end of WB
copyright Noah Bridges

Fig trees do two things very well. They produce lots of figs and they grow real tall. Too tall in fact, perhaps I can convince a few of these fig ranchers to prune their trees and promote growth of more low hanging fruit for next year's crop.
(wow.. I just used the "low hanging fruit" business lexicon in relation to agriculture... cool)

And then came that smell....errrr stench!     

               Now biking towards home, North on South Lumina, approaching SouthEnd  Surf Shop, it all started to change.. and not for the better. Advancing towards Oceanic an unpleasant smell thickened into a  dank putrid stench. Bwaaah! Where's it coming from?

               There it was!. Right out in front of Oceanic Restaurant as if  a welcome mat for roaches, vermin and other goblins.... a thick, milky, stinking stream of trash juice flowing from the under the dumpster fencing right into the storm drain. Gosh awful sight and aroma! BTW the storm drain probably make its way into Bank's Channel. Think about that!

                I hope the neighbors don't accept this as the status quo, nor any other citizen for that matter. I can say this is not the first time I have seen and smelled this at the Oceanic lot entrance. .In fact, you can see a permanent stain across the pavement meandering from "dumpster" to "drain". I hope the Oceanic management makes a serious and successful effort to correct this problem for good. Simply put this is not an acceptable situation and we have TOWB ordinances that say so.

                Perhaps it is a matter of retraining employees or revising trash procedures or a better engineered dumpster site...or worse getting management's attention and engagement. Unless Oceanic management swims the ocean to get to work each day, they must pass through this grand welcome mat of stink regularly. Get a clue folks... fix it... is is not acceptable.

                I have intentionally not placed a picture of this Oceanic situation as it is quite revolting, but if management would like to see it just contact me... better yet walk out to the street to smell and see it for yourself.

For those readers who want to register their dissatisfaction you can email our TOWB Town Manager Bob Simpson at bsimpson@towb.org or Mayor David Cignotti at dcignotti@towb.org ....and I have no qualms if you reference me (Noah Bridges a citizen of Wrightsville Beach).

So to end on a positive note I have rather chosen to share below something more pleasant, reflecting good stuff here at WB.

Simple sand fun had by children during low tide at WB
copyright Noah Bridges

Thanks for reading,

Noah