Huntington Beach’s waters make the grade

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- A report card issued Wednesday by the environmental

group Heal the Bay gave a majority of the nearby coastline the top grade

for water quality last year.

The timing of the favorable report couldn’t be better, City Councilman

Dave Sullivan said. It helps to counter the negative publicity the city

has been receiving since last summer’s disastrous beach closures just as

Huntington Beach prepares for another tourist season.

“I think it’s just the shot in the arm we need at this point,” Sullivan

said.

During dry weather, when most people are hitting the waves, water quality

at the city beach and Bolsa Chica State Beach deserved “A” grades for

1999, the report shows. The only area receiving poor marks was Huntington

State Beach, in particular the section between Newland and Magnolia

streets, where disease-causing bacteria were first detected last summer

before spreading up the coast.

Eventually, more than four miles of shoreline, including the city beach,

had to be closed, making Surf City largely unsurfable. But the only

consistently high concentrations of contamination were found at the

southern state beach, which is why the rest of the local waters scored so

well, said James Alamillo, a Heal the Bay manager who produced the

report.

That hasn’t changed as of Wednesday, with health inspectors posting

warnings on a 6,500-foot stretch of the state beach from the Santa Ana

River mouth to Magnolia, urging swimmers to stay away because of

pollution in the water, said Monica Mazur, a biologist for the Orange

County Health Care Agency.

The most troubling aspect of the continuing contamination is that the

precise sources remain a mystery despite the city spending close to $2

million trying to pinpoint the causes.

“If we knew that answer, we could stop paying millions of dollars in

studies,” she said. “We could go back to [studying] the meaning of life.”

The ongoing research will not be completed until midsummer, but county

officials have approved an unprecedented plan to protect the waters even

before all the causes are discovered, said Mary Anne Skorpanich, special

projects manager for the county’s public facilities and resources

department.

The $276,000 plan, starting June 7, will divert and treat about

2.5-million gallons of daily urban runoff that flows into the ocean from

the Santa Ana River and the Talbert flood control channel, she said.

Runoff, untreated waste water that washes down from streets and lawns

into storm drains and out to the ocean, is considered a major factor

contributing to the pollution.

“We felt it was prudent to take action now on the known causes,”

Skorpanich said.

The county program complements the city’s ongoing diversion of its pump

stations. The runoff being targeted ends up off Huntington Beach but also

comes from portions of Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Fountain

Valley.

The runoff will be treated at local sanitation plants before being

discharged through a pipeline five miles out to sea, away from the surf

zone.

The diversion program requires using sandbags and concrete barriers, she

said. During summer high tides, temporary sand berms will be built at the

mouth of the river and the channel to prevent water from flowing back and

forth out of the waterways, she said.

The diversion will last until Sept. 4, Labor Day, she said.

The holiday is considered the last hoorah for businesses that depend on

summer crowds.

Bud Wescott, co-owner of the Surf City Store that sells shirts and hats

at the pier, doesn’t know if all this scientific work will pay off with

clean ocean water. But he dreads a repeat of last summer.

“It affects all the people who work down here,” he said. “There’s just a

lot more jobs in the summertime if you’re busy.”