Pollution data muddies water

The numbers are eye-popping. Pollution in the water along Huntington

and Newport beaches costs people as much as $3.3 million in medical

treatments each year -- anywhere from $37 to $77 per illness. That is

an expensive dip in the ocean.

Right?

Well, maybe not. As much as the numbers--which come from a study

released this month by a group led by a UC Irvine doctoral student --

seem to be yet more fodder in the battle to increase water-quality

standards, they are, sadly, not nearly as shocking as they appear.

It’s even possible the study could hurt the clean-water cause.

The trouble is the methods behind this latest look into our

oceans. The study pulled together data from a United Kingdom study

with one on estimated illnesses along Huntington and Newport. The

author suggested this essentially created a third set of data; but

the looseness of the connection even bothered a water-quality

activist as respected as Newport’s Jack Skinner. He noted that the

foreign study tested beaches near sewage discharge, while in

Huntington and Newport sewage is discharged 4 1/2 miles offshore.

“You worry about runoff, right, but that’s not as hazardous as

sewage contamination,” Skinner said. He also guessed that the $3.3

million in medical expenses was too high a figure. Other local

activists echoed Skinner’s thoughts, though there was anything but

unanimity from environmentalists.

That disagreement may say as much as anything about the potential

effects of this study. Rather than being a report environmentalists

and even casual supporters of increased pollution control can rally

around, it produces questionable findings. It makes an interesting,

and potentially valuable, link between pollution and economic costs,

but it fails to do so in a way that can become a rallying cry for

much-needed control of urban runoff in beach cities and those farther

upstream that clearly play a part in our pollution troubles.

And what if, instead, skeptics point to it as an example of the

overblown rhetoric used to try to enforce tough rules? That could

prove a truly eye-popping argument.