Briefly in the news

The Orange County Sanitation District has scheduled another round of

testing of the ocean waters off Newport Beach.

The district has scheduled three days of testing, beginning Tuesday,

to measure bacteria levels off city beaches. Huntington Beach will also

be included in the testing.

The testing is the second of six scheduled rounds, which will last

until the end of August. The district has budgeted $4.1 million to

collect samples from waters near the shoreline and four miles out to sea.

The district hopes to determine if its own “outflow” sewer pipe on the

ocean floor is causing increased bacteria levels off shore.

A UC Irvine professor has also speculated that operation of the AES

Corp. power plant in Huntington Beach could also be contributing to the

problem.