New study may expose source of pollution

Alex Coolman

NEWPORT BEACH -- The results of an environmental study to be released

Tuesday should help the city address some of its runoff-related pollution

concerns, city officials said.

The study was conducted by the Southern California Coastal Water

Research Project, a public research group whose board members are drawn

from city, county, state and federal agencies. The group has been looking

at nine spots in Newport Beach where levels of bacteria are frequently

high.

And though Rachel Noble, a research scientist with the project, said

she could not yet reveal specific details of the report, she said the

results would likely provide an important key to the pollution-fighting

effort: hard data on whether the contamination in the city’s trouble

spots comes from human or animal sources.

“This is like a pilot study, a quick snapshot of what’s out there,”

Noble said.

But it’s a more detailed analysis of the nature of Newport Beach

pollution than has so far been available.

The study is the outgrowth of a project that originally had focused on

matching DNA samples from local waters against samples of DNA from human

and animal sources.

But after a meeting in May to discuss the study design, city and

county officials concluded that a different approach would be more likely

to provide useful information.

“This is what it’s morphed into,” said Newport Beach Deputy City

Manager Dave Kiff: a project that tests water samples for the presence of

human-specific viruses.

If those viruses show up, Noble said, researchers can be nearly

certain that human waste is contributing to contamination problems in a

given area.

Three sites in Newport Beach -- 43rd Street on the bay side of the

peninsula, the Harbor Marina area near The Arches and the 33rd Street

channel between 33rd and 37th streets -- sport long-term advisories about

bacteria levels. Spots at the north end of the Dunes resort, Bayshore

Beach and 38th Street have short-term postings about bacteria.

Some of these sites, such as 43rd Street, always receive the lowest

possible score on a weekly beach report card issued by the Santa

Monica-based environmental group Heal the Bay.

City officials believe urban runoff may be the culprit in some of

these spots, but it so far been impossible to tell whether the pollution

carries human waste or if it comes from other sources, such as animal

waste.

With the results of the new study in hand, Kiff said, the city may

come closer to solving that problem.