By Jack Innis

The San Diego Coast-keeper has effectively halted SeaWorld's fireworks shows - and that might be just the beginning.

SAN DIEGO - A lawsuit that led to the cessation of fireworks at SeaWorld may threaten waterside fireworks throughout the state.

Boaters along the West Coast - from San Diego to Puget Sound, Wash. - have enjoyed watching waterside fireworks for decades. Such fireworks are popular with boaters nationally and internationally.

SeaWorld stopped their fireworks shows August 19 to avoid a lawsuit from San Diego Coastkeeper, an environmental group that contends chemical and paper residue from the fireworks are polluting Mission Bay. The suit aimed to force SeaWorld to apply for a Waste Discharge Permit from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (CRWQCB), according to published reports.

Although the CRWQCB in the past has not seen reason to consider or demand such a permit, the actions it takes may lead to the decision that all those in California who explode fireworks over the water - from yacht clubs to port districts - will need permits. Such permits take may take months to acquire and range from hundreds to 10s of thousands of dollars to obtain. Many along the waterfront are worried that the extra costs and hassles associated with obtaining permits will cause public and private entities to abandon their fireworks programs.

A Question of Pollution

Fireworks are an important component of festivities in virtually every stretch of the water along the coastline.

During winter holidays, boaters enjoy numerous pyro-technic displays. Among them: the Santa Barbara Parade of Lights, the Los Angeles County Holiday Boat Parade, the Mission Bay Christmas Boat Parade and the San Diego Bay Parade of Lights. Summertime Indepen-dence Day fireworks, an American tradition since shortly after the Revolutionary War, are likewise enjoyed up and down the coast. That may change due to the lawsuit threat: despite evidence that SeaWorld's pyrotechnic shows - run since 1984 - are not harming the waters.

According to a recently completed 17-page long-term study mandated by SeaWorld's master plan, the theme park's fireworks produce no significant pollution.

"SeaWorld fireworks do not pollute the bay," said spokesman Dave Koontz. "We're in complete compliance with all state, local, and federal regulations and permitting requirements. But under the circumstances, being that

we were threatened with a lawsuit, we're putting together an application for a water discharge permit."

The permit will be presented to the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board (SDRWQCB) in about a month, Koontz said. If the water board decides to examine the application, and if a permit is required, it will take months to issue. Previously, the SDRWQCB has not seen the need to regulate fireworks.

"SeaWorld has never been requested or required (by a government agency) to have a permit," Koontz said. "In fact, no other entity in San Diego that launches fireworks over water has the need or requirement for their displays."

But that may change under persistent pressure from San Diego Coastkeeper, which believes the theme park's fireworks shows potentially dump 38,000 to 40,000 pounds of residue into Mission Bay every year, the group's attorney Marco Gonzalez said in a recently broadcast interview. The fireworks shows - approximately 150 per year - are set off on major holidays and every day during the summer. Nightly shows are approximately six minutes in duration: holiday shows are longer.

"Look at what's in fireworks," Gonzalez said. "Typically, you could have any number of very toxic heavy metals in fireworks; there's just a whole host of things that we know are toxic."

Koontz vehemently disagrees.

"We're in the fifth year of a monitoring plan that was mandated by the California Coastal Commission in 2001 as part of our master plan, and to date, there is no evidence that SeaWorld fireworks are polluting the bay, the bottom sediment or the shoreline," he said. "The results of those analysis and reports have been submitted to the Coastal Commission [and] the Water Quality Control Board, as well as a variety of other organizations in this area."

But scientific reports apparently are not as important as anecdotal evidence to San Diego Coastkeeper. When asked if there's any scientific evidence to show that fireworks cause pollution, Gonzalez responded vaguely.

"I guess that's kind of a funny question. Is there any scientific evidence that people walking along the shoreline of Fiesta Island can see trash, which clearly has residue of exploded fireworks going into the bay?" he asked.

Disparate Findings

Such rhetoric seems to place SeaWorld - and possibly any entity that presents waterside fireworks - in an untenable position: If people act responsibly and clean up any unexploded debris that drifts down onto the water, such action will be regarded as proof that they are polluters.

Although the Coastkeeper contends the fireworks are causing pollution, a study published in the journal Chemosphere arrived at a different conclusion. Dr. Robertus Vichmann of the Braunschweig Technical Uni-versity in Germany studied the aftereffects of pyrotechnics and concluded that they don't emit harmful chemicals.

"It's not dangerous to man and also not dangerous to environment, to the nature, to use these fireworks," Vichmann wrote.

But Coastkeeper's longtime struggle to get the theme park to comply with its demands seems to point more toward a tendency to battle the SeaWorld and its parent corporation than whether or not the fireworks have been shown to produce significant pollution.

"Coastkeeper tried to work with SeaWorld on this issue," Gonzalez said. "We never one time, for one second, said, 'you need to stop shooting off fireworks.' That was a unilateral decision done, without question, to try to vilify Coastkeeper. This is not just SeaWorld, it is (parent company) Anheuser-Busch, promoting its beer brands to adults coming to its parks, perhaps even to the kids coming to its park."

San Diego City Council-woman Donna Frye, a longtime environmentalist regarded as a champion to Mission Bay, has received feedback from constituents on both sides of the fence. Her Fifth Council District encompasses Mission Bay and her office fields inquiries and comments about the fireworks. Most comments from those living nearby are negative. Never-theless, Frye is not sold on Coastkeeper's contention that pyrotechnics are depositing toxic heavy metals into the bay.

"We're not concerned about Fourth of July fireworks, but are interested in the potential cumulative effects of 150 shows per year," said Nicole Capretz, Frye's senior policy advisor.

Domino Effect

Along the waterfront, fears that the SeaWorld fireworks cessation may lead to a statewide ban or regulations on waterside fireworks may be justified. Coastkeeper has made it clear that it doesn't intend to stop with SeaWorld.

"The beauty of the Clean Water Act is that it doesn't say you're not allowed to pollute, it says if you're going to pollute, you need a permit," Gonzalez told KPBS San Diego listeners. "SeaWorld likes to say, 'we don't see an impact now.' Quite frankly, why should we have to see an impact before we start regulating a discharge?" Gonzalez said Coastkeeper will next target fireworks along San Diego Bay, which he labels as "unswimmable and unfishable" due to pollution.

"We're going to be speaking with the (San Diego Unified) Port District about their fireworks," Gonzalez said. "We will probably try to ensure that everybody who shoots fireworks with potentially harmful materials over our precious resources gets an appropriate permit."

Those at SDRWQCB are not sure how this conflict will be resolved. It may amount to nothing. It may lead to fewer or no fireworks at SeaWorld. It may affect Mission Bay only. Or it may end all waterside fireworks displays statewide.

"It's much too early to tell," said ombudsman Mike McCann. "It might play out in a number of ways. At this point in time, we're not even sure if we're going to regulate fireworks."

San Diego Coastkeeper, formerly called San Diego Baykeeper, is a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting the region's bays, beaches, watersheds and ocean. SeaWorld was founded in 1964 by four graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The adventure park went public in 1968 and was acquired by Anheuser-Busch in 1989.

The California Water Resources Control Board oversees nine regional water quality control boards throughout the state.

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