Clearing the Coast

On the surface, the sea-green water of Newport Beach’s Rhine Channel sparkles in the summer sun. But seven feet down, a thick layer of toxic gunk carpets the channel bed: Sediment mixed with arsenic, copper, lead, mercury and other poisons, studded with concrete chunks, cigarette butts, rusting boats and other trash.

The canal, just off Lafayette Boulevard, is the No. 1 toxic hot spot in Orange County, according to a recent state survey by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

On Thursday, members of a new watchdog group called the Orange County CoastKeeper announced the group’s formation on the docks alongside the canal.

CoastKeeper staff and the volunteers they expect to recruit will patrol county beaches and harbors for pollution. They also will investigate reports of inland dumping into storm drains that run into the ocean. Their efforts will augment patrols by government agencies such as the Coast Guard.

Modeled on a successful Riverkeeper program across the country, it is the newest of more than three dozen allied water-monitoring efforts. The Orange County group received $100,000 in start-up funds from Environment Now, another nonprofit devoted to cleaning up polluted waters, and other sources.

It is the fourth such group along the California coastline, joining Santa Monica, San Francisco and San Diego.

“Our habitat stretches from Big Bear Lake to the Pacific Ocean,” said Garry Brown, dubbed by the organization as the top Orange Coast keeper. “Picture a huge funnel, so huge that 3,000 square miles--with 4 1/2 million people and miles of sidewalks and storm drains--runs into it. Orange County is that funnel. Everything, by the laws of gravity . . . flows down through Orange County through our wetlands, and onto our coastline.”

Relying on calls to a hotline and volunteer monitors, CoastKeeper personnel will collect hard evidence of pollution, then try to work with the polluter to craft solutions.

Riverkeeper on the Hudson River in New York and the Santa Monica BayKeeper in Los Angeles both have successfully sued polluters to force them to change their ways, organizers said.

Natural Resources Defense Council attorneys on hand Thursday said they joined the Santa Monica affiliate in suing Caltrans and Los Angeles County government, forcing both to implement extensive storm drain pollution control programs.

The Rhine Channel is a dead-end canal off the Pacific built in 1918. Once home to 38 shipbuilders and other businesses through World War II and the Korean War, it was identified as the leading toxic “hot spot” by the Santa Ana branch of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board last November.

“There were no rules then--nobody was doing anything illegal, they just threw everything in here,” Brown said. “It’s not a matter of whose fault it is, it’s how do we clean it up.”

Brown estimated it would take $12 million to $14 million to dredge the canal and move the contaminated sediment to a hazardous-waste landfill. Joanne Schneider of the state water board said this solution and others are being studied.

While the Rhine Channel is the only definitely identified toxic hot spot in Orange County waters, there are several others identified as strong “candidates,” according to the water quality board. They include Anaheim Bay between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach, three sections of the National Wildlife Refuge in Seal Beach, Huntington Harbor, the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, and Upper and Lower Newport Bays.

Schneider stressed that in many cases the concerns are limited to small portions of these sites. “We do not necessarily mean to convey the area as a whole is a major toxic dump,” she said.

Thursday’s kickoff was held at the Cannery Restaurant, , which is due to be razed for condominiums.

“If I were paying $400,000 to 500,000 for a condominium with a boat docked out front,” Brown said, “I’d want to know it was safe for my grandkid to jump in the water.”

The CoastKeepers Pollution Hotline is (877) 4-CACOAST. Information is available at (949) 723-5424.