Until this moment, this has been a surprisingly well kept secret. As a child, my mother would often lead my younger sister an I down the slippery shale cliffs toward the beach. These particular beach trips were unlike the others that frequented our lives. We traveled about twenty minutes passed the edge of Santa Cruz; we knew we had arrived when we reached a lone blinking yellow light hanging from a sagging electrical cable. As we pulled in to the left and emerged from the car, an ’89 Cherokee, we could smell an ocean we were not used to smelling. The salty smell of the ocean mixed and commingled with the smell of shale and dirt and moss and the recent rain. This was not a normal beach. Two separate rivers flowed into it, both coming from the up-river town of Davenport, a small town based on an unsuccessful whaling endeavor, followed by the opening of the cement plant that still stands today. There was a good reason that we clambered (or rather, slid) down the slippery sedimentary cliffs as young children. There were two different art-glass studios in Davenport, which, consequentially dumped their mistakes into the river that flowed to the beach. Over the years that we went there, my mother, my sister and I found many large and breathtaking pieces of glass that had been smoothed and worn by the choppy north California coast waters. There were many times that it was quite dangerous, and if nothing else, cold, but those times together that we did our own treasure hunting was so worth it. Once, a section of the shale cliff fell onto the beach and made the most penetrating sound I had heard in my life. Often, my mother would leap into the frigid river when she saw a “good piece”, driving her arm into the air triumphantly with the pice of glass closed in her hand incase a wave knocked her over. Recently, I have returned to this beach in Davenport, and have found it in a much different condition than I left it all those years ago. There are only fragments of glass, either because the secret was let out or they were ordered to stop dumping it (probably for the better). But in all of Davenport the mood has seemed to have shifted. There has been reports of animals (including Coho Salmon and others) not running through the waters anymore, and the ones that do have died. The water used by the some 200 residents of Davenport is filtered by the cement plant, and tests have come out showing very high turbidity levels, and their systems have been found to be unequipped to to filter out harmful viruses and cryptosporidia and giardia, two parasites that cause diarrhea. Last year, a boil order was sent out, requesting that citizens boil their water to filter out these viruses at home, and at a local elementary school as well. This is all despite the fact that they pay some of the highest water bills in the county, and that amount would significantly increase if new filtering systems were to be adopted. The city of Santa Cruz has offered to purchase bottled water to homes and the school in a rationed form of 12 5-gallon bottles per month to each residence and business and up to 70, 5-gallon bottles per month to the elementary school. Citizens and city planners are still looking for a way to fund the state-mandated $600,000 new filtration system-but without any state monetary assistance. Davenport has become more of a tourist intrest in recent years, but that is not what this is attributed to. Some blame the cement plant for causing the turbidity, and cement plants in general have been shown to emit mercury into the air. Most just want answers as to why the natural beauty and health of their homes and the homes of local animals have been compromised. The thing about natural beauty is that is is never the same as we best remember it. I will remember how larger than life the cliffs were, not how they are now so eroded. I will remember how large and gaping the caves were, not how they are now filled with sand. I will remember the river flowing, fish and all, not how it is now stagnant.