Let the Gutter Critter protect your fishery
Kenny Beckstead is a local environmentalist and inventor who is looking out for our coastlines. He brought this product by the shop a few days ago and we really dig it. Depending on where you live there are civil ordinances that levy fines against homeowners who let anything run out of their yard and down a storm drain. Also, at least here in CA, storm drains lead directly to the ocean and are not filtered en route. This can lead to some nasty water on days after rainstorms and a lot of it is preventable. His simple idea is a self-managed filter for your own runoff. Drop it in your gutter on rainy days, when you wash the car, wash down your kayaks after a fishing trip or whenever you will have water runoff and the Gutter Critter does the work. As kayak anglers we like to practice catch and release in our sport fisheries and we support sustainable consumption, too. We also need to be aware that it takes more than C&R to maintain a fishery and this is a good step for reducing potential damage from runoff.
Nautilus Environmental, an indie environmental testing company, checked it out and liked what they found. Total suspeded solids were reduced up to 66% – that’s a good thing.
Check out his video (now in HD!) for an explanation.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
If everyone in California used this product the quality of our waters and fishery would be greatly increased. It’s up to each person to take the environment into their own hands because no one else will.