Report finds a lot of waste in Newport

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- Home to Orange County’s most visited pleasure

harbor and largest natural estuary, Newport Beach has also scored a

more troubling distinction as a place with a handful of the dirtiest

beaches.

Beach postings and closures in Orange County spiked to an

eye-popping 80.7% in 2001 as compared to the prior year, a national

environmental watchdog reported this month. Many of those occurred at

stretches of sand in Newport Beach.

“We’re embarrassed, we’re not happy about it,” Mayor Tod Ridgeway

said. “We’re a highly urbanized county ... we have development up to

the water’s edge, where much of the rest of the state does not.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council reported the data in a study

of the nation’s beaches that was released Wednesday.

When county health regulators discover heightened levels of

bacteria in the water, signs are posted warning swimmers to stay out

of the water. If a sewage spill occurs, regulators close the beach.

Orange County’s beaches were marred by one of those two stigmas

for 1,592 days of 2001. There were only 881 such days in 2000, the

report said.

Ventura County came in at No. 2 on the hit list, with 1,540 days.

Los Angeles County was third, with 1,046 days.

In Newport Beach, several recurring trouble spots again made the

group’s list of trouble spots. Those included the Newport Dunes

Waterfront Resort’s swimming lagoon in Upper Newport Bay, Harbor

Patrol Beach near the Balboa Bay Club and three Balboa Peninsula

beaches -- 43rd Street, 38th Street and 15th Street.

“The Dunes [resort] is one of those hot spots,” said Bob Caustin,

who founded Defend the Bay to help clean up Back Bay. “The trend is

there. It’s unfortunate, but those are the facts coming from the

county health agency.”

Caustin, who works closely with the National Resources Defense

Council to improve water-quality, said the report should show city

residents that “we have a serious problem and it’s not going to go

away.”

Newport Beach’s geography at least partly explains why the high

levels of bacteria continue to pop up in water in Newport Harbor and

the Back Bay. Much of the county’s urban runoff -- polluted water

that is known to include animal and human waste, lawn pesticides and

copper brake residue from the roadways -- runs down channels to one

of about 2,200 storm-drain openings into city waterways. In that way,

the city tends to act as a receptacle for the county’s polluted waste

water.

City leaders have begun to address the problem. The city has

launched three studies to help determine the cause and scope of the

problem, Asst. City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The city is spending $45,000 to determine whether boats are

dumping their heads into the harbor, $120,000 to study the presence

of viruses and another $120,000 to monitor bacteria levels in the

Dunes’ lagoon.