Report: few resources to combat beach pollution

Alex Coolman

Stricter water quality laws are creating an overwhelming workload for

county water agencies, which do not have adequate staff or resources to

deal with beach pollution, according to a report released Tuesday by the

Orange County Grand Jury.

The 1999 passage of Assembly Bill 411 has more than doubled the workload

of the Orange County Public Health Lab in Santa Ana, but staffing is not

sufficient to respond to the increased data flow, the report concludes.

The health lab and the Orange County Health Agency are responsible for

testing the ocean water along the coast of Newport Beach for

contamination.

In cases of sewage spills, like the one that fouled Newport waters near

the Santa Ana River in May, they are charged with closing the beaches.

But it’s in dealing with routine testing, and coming up with solutions to

ongoing problems like urban runoff, that the agencies face their greatest

resource challenge.

The grand jury report notes that the offices are unable to help other

county agencies with water testing or perform other simple tasks because

of personnel limitations.

“There is no staff time available to conduct research and development or

to evaluate any promising new testing procedures,” the report states.

Assembly Bill 411, passed last summer, increased the variety of tests

that are performed at beaches and introduced stricter standards for

posting public health warnings.

In the wake of the new legislation, said Karen Evarts, a grand jury

member and the principal author of the report, county facilities have

been stretched to their limits.

“We were just not impressed with the lack of computer facilities and the

lack of manpower. They’re literally using these Excel spreadsheets spread

out on a table and using a felt-tip pen” to analyze test data, she said.

In response to the problem, the grand jury report makes several

recommendations, including:

* Hiring additional staff, including microbiologists and analysts;

* Updating the technology used by the Public Health Lab and the Orange

County Health Care Agency;

* Posting more current and accurate information on the Health Care

Agency’s Web site.

Monica Mazur, a spokesperson for the Health Care Agency, said the grand

jury’s characterization of the county resource crunch was accurate.

“The workload increased tremendously” with the new legislation, she said.

“All this data is coming in from different labs at different times of the

day with different methodologies. The data tracking is a nightmare. The

technology for the computers hasn’t caught up with it.”

Mazur noted, however, that the wheels are already in motion to address

the problems that the grand jury’s report discusses.

About $1.2 million in funding is included in the pending state budget for

high-tech improvements to the county’s water-testing lab.

More than $300,000 in county funding will be used to hire a

microbiologist and a lab technician, and to acquire equipment to help

grapple with the data avalanche, said Douglas Moore, laboratory director

for the Public Health Lab.

Nancy Gardner, president of the Newport Beach chapter of The Surfrider

Foundation, said she felt boosting water-quality resources would be an

important follow-up to the passage of the stricter legislation.

“The beach postings have certainly raised awareness,” she said. “This is

the next step. Let’s start to really look at what we’re finding.”