Not again!

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- Another nasty wave of contamination fouled the ocean

this week, renewing concerns about Surf City’s reputation for fun in the

sun.

“I think everybody’s worried,” said Joyce Riddell, president of the

Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. “Everybody wants to have a safe and

clean beach.”

Recent water-quality tests have been disappointing.

For only six days since April has the entire 8 1/2-mile stretch of the

local shore been considered safe for swimming. The rest of the time,

health officials have either closed parts of the ocean waters or posted

warnings recommending that swimmers stay away because of high levels of

disease-causing bacteria, said Monica Mazur, a biologist for the Orange

County Health Care Agency.

The latest mess came Tuesday from a broken pipeline in Costa Mesa that

dumped between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons of raw sewage off the coast.

The spill affects a 1,000-foot stretch of Huntington State Beach, from

the Talbert flood control channel to the Santa Ana River, and it will be

closed to swimming until at least this afternoon, Mazur said.

Aside from the sewage contamination, another 5,500-foot stretch of water

farther north along the state beach is plagued with enough pollution that

officials suggest avoiding the area up to Magnolia Street, she said.

To help determine what is causing this mysterious contamination,

researchers performed another dye test Wednesday. Similar to last week’s

experiment, they released 22 gallons of nontoxic coloring to help track

water currents flowing into the state beach from the flood control

channel and the Santa Ana River.

The state beach was where alarmingly high levels of bacteria were first

detected in July. The bacteria then spread up the coast. At its worst,

the pollution forced health officials to block off four miles of

shoreline during the peak tourist season.

The precise cause -- or causes -- of the contamination remains a mystery,

but experts suspect a factor may be urban runoff, untreated waste water

that flows from lawns and streets into storm drains before being dumped

into the ocean.

The city has spent more than $1 million so far trying to pinpoint the

source of the problem.

With summer beginning next month, merchants are losing patience.

“If I don’t get the tourists, I might as well close up and go home,” said

Michael Ali, who owns the concession store Zack’s Pier Plaza.

Eldon Bagstad, owner of the popular El Don liquor store, said he lost 50%

of his business during last summer’s closures. He recalled how bleak the

shoreline looked.

“You could shoot a cannon across the beach and not hit anybody,” Bagstad

said.

If the problem isn’t solved quickly, he expects tourists to again go

elsewhere.

“They’ll avoid Huntington Beach like the plague,” Bagstad said.

Resident Phil Carrillo, 33, enjoys surfing by the pier, but if he is not

allowed to throw spray here, he’ll go to Newport Beach, he said.

“You just go somewhere else, you know?” he said. “The ocean’s pretty

big.”