BRIEFLY IN THE NEWS El Pollo...
BRIEFLY IN
THE NEWS
El Pollo Loco grease sparks beach closures
A grease blockage at an El Pollo Loco in the 1900 block of Harbor
Boulevard in Costa Mesa set off a chain of events that eventually
caused the closure of parts of Huntington State Beach and Newport
Beach’s coastline.
The grease started piling up on Tuesday night, blocking a pipe and
causing an overflow into the storm drain, said Monica Mazur,
spokeswoman for the Orange County Health Care Agency.
From the storm drain, the greasy goo flowed into the Greenville
Banning channel and then into the Santa Ana River and the ocean, she
said.
Wednesday afternoon, the county’s Environmental Health Division
posted a swimming and surfing closure 300 feet up-coast and 300 feet
down-coast of the Santa Ana River as a precautionary measure.
On Thursday, the agency will start taking water samples; once it
records two consecutive days of cleanliness, the closures will be
removed, Mazur said.
It’s up to the Regional Water Quality Control Board to decide
whether to issue a citation against El Pollo Loco, Mazur said.
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