Pulp Fact: A meditation on surfing in the waste stream
Posted on July 10, 2008 @ 8:34 AM
Words and principle photography by: Will Henry
I sit atop a rocky sea stack under cold, overcast skies, gaze out over a glassy rivermouth lineup, and contemplate my options. Head-high waves peel flawlessly down a well-formed sandbar without a surfer in sight. Under normal circumstances I would be in a pre-surf frenzy, scrambling to get into my wetsuit and hit the water. But today I can’t ignore the commotion behind me, no matter how hard I try to focus my attention on the surf. Usually I’m more concerned with unknown dangers that I might encounter when pioneering a new spot, like rocks, sharks, or hostile locals. Yet none of these factors are currently giving me cause for worry. The waves aren’t big or dangerous, there is no feeding frenzy, and there’s not a local in sight, but my stomach is turning as though I’m heading out for a virgin session at 30-foot Mavericks.
The reason for my hesitation is not one I’m familiar with, although the surf crew during the 1980s in Humboldt County, California, could certainly relate. Behind me looms a massive industrial pulp mill, one of many in this part of Chile, all of which are notorious for spewing thousands of gallons of toxic waste into the ocean. This particular mill, which occupies the
entire beachfront in the city of Constitución, has towering stacks that bellow a foul stench, and a pipeline that spews mysteriously brown liquid less than a cutback away. But damn, the waves sure are good.
I remember a story I was told some years ago by a guy who surfed this place. About 10 years ago, one of the first gringo ex-pats to settle in the area had driven down to this spot. The waves were perfect, and as usual there were no surfers around. The mill’s toxicity was already notorious, and local surfers avoided it like the plague. But, as he described it, the waves were just too good to resist. Finally, against his best judgment, he paddled out. He caught a few great waves, but within minutes grew dizzy. After 20 minutes he paddled for shore, overwhelmed by nausea. By the time he reached the beach, he was retching.
His Chilean friends told him afterwards that he was crazy to even attempt it. “If you had seen how good it was,” he replied, “you would have surfed it, too.” No doubt many of us would
have made the same leap of faith, or perhaps you’d call it surf-induced stupidity. And here I am, the next idiot in line, ready to ignore common sense and be a human lab rat.
Constitución is known as “Constipolución” by many surfers, but this is not the only pulp mill polluting the waters of Chile. A company known as CELCO owns the majority of the nation’s pulp processing plants, including this one. CELCO has been responsible for numerous environmental disasters over the past five years.
In 2005 the Rio Cruces watershed was devastated by an “accident” that killed thousands of rare black-neck swans after a spill from a CELCO mill flooded a Wetlands Reserve. Then in 2007 the company was responsible for another toxic disaster that killed millions of fish in the Mataquito River and estuary, once a healthy and productive fishery (in fact, the very same river that lets out here, where I am currently considering a potential toxic overdose). Thousands of local fishermen and their families were out of work with no way to put food on the table. Most worrisome is CELCO’s new facility, the largest pulp mill in Chile, at Nueva Aldea. Its pipeline, which is nearly complete, will pump waste directly into the sea near some of the world’s best left pointbreaks, just to the south of where I am now nervously biting my nails.
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