Super Bowl fireworks leave S.F. beach trashed, park officials say

Park officials cleaned up debris that washed ashore Sunday following the Macy’s fireworks show. Park officials cleaned up debris that washed ashore Sunday following the Macy’s fireworks show. Photo: National Park Service / National Park Service / Photo: National Park Service / National Park Service / Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Super Bowl fireworks leave S.F. beach trashed, park officials say 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Enough junk to fill four 50-gallon trash cans washed ashore at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park over the weekend and National Park Service officials, who sent workers to clean it up, suspect it came from a Super Bowl 50 fireworks show.

One employee spent about eight hours at Aquatic Park collecting debris from pyrotechnics, some of which were unspent, as well as cardboard casings, plastics and fuses.

The Saturday fireworks show was put on by Macy’s, an official Super Bowl 50 Host Committee partner, and another show is scheduled for Friday at 10 p.m.

Orlando Veras, a Macy’s spokesman, said he did not think the mass amounts of garbage on the beach were from the festivities.

“All of our fireworks are self-consuming, so that debris, I would venture to guess, are not from the show,” Veras said.

But park officials said the debris was likely dumped into the water from a fireworks launching barge before floating ashore. They contrasted the incident with the usual Fourth of July celebrations, which are facilitated by the city and which use eco-friendly material to set off the fireworks.

“I’ve never seen that much firework debris,” said David Pelfrey, a supervisory ranger for the national park and beach. “We were all pretty much caught by surprise.”

Park employees said they were not contacted in advance about the weekend’s fireworks. They hoped not to see a repeat of the mess.

Rejane Butler, a guide who works in the park’s educational programs, personally raked the beach and cleaned up the debris beginning Sunday morning. She said she heard from swimmers that they were wading through the debris floating in the water.

“Our basic angle from our division’s perspective is we don’t like dirty beaches,” Pelfrey said.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov