BRIEFS

The Orange County Sanitation District announced Tuesday its plan to

conduct extensive testing of the coast of Huntington Beach during the

summer season.

A multimillion-dollar effort between several agencies will attempt to

identify the origin of high bacteria counts that forced beach closures in

1999.

The summer research is the first in many steps to critically evaluate

the hypothesis presented in mid-November by a group of researchers from

the UCI.

It is also part of an ongoing effort by the Orange County Sanitation

District to track the treated waste-water plume released from the

five-mile ocean outfall pipe and continue to enhance the sanitation

district’s ocean water monitoring program.