Beaches report disputed

Local water-quality officials are taking issue with a new report from an environmental group that criticizes beach water quality along the coast, including several Newport Beach spots.

The Natural Resources Defense Council on Thursday announced record-high levels of beach closings and warnings in 2005 as a result of water-quality problems. While closures and warnings statewide were up 25% last year compared to 2004, Orange County test spots showed a 33% decrease in problem levels of bacteria.

Because of the data, the council named three Newport spots to the list of “beach bums,” where water quality violated federal standards at least half of the times it was tested: portions of Crystal Cove State Park, Newport Bay and Buck Gully.

But Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff argued that’s misleading, because many of the test locations weren’t beaches — they were storm drains and creeks that don’t flow to the ocean.

The data is gathered by local agencies, such as the Orange County Health Care Agency, and analyzed by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Tests for bacteria that indicate harmful water conditions were performed at four spots in Crystal Cove State Park, 11 Newport Beach sites and 28 locations in Newport Bay.

The most frequent problems statewide were in Los Angeles County, where 2,213 beach closures or warnings occurred in 2005. In Orange County there were 631 warnings or closures that year.

“In California we have very long beaches, so we’re not saying that all of Crystal Cove or all of Newport Beach is a beach bum,” said Natural Resources Defense Council attorney David Beckman. “The bottom line here in Orange County and throughout the country [is] our report shows that year after year we have an unaddressed public health problem at beaches.”

The bacteria in runoff from rivers and storm drains makes its way to the beach, where people in the water can get sick. The council on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which it said should have set higher water quality standards to keep beach visitors safe.

Local water quality officials agreed that runoff is a problem, but they said the council’s report is misleading.

“They weren’t even looking at recreational waterways,” Kiff said. “Their point is OK, that this is runoff and it brings pollution into the waterways. But to me what really matters is are the waterways themselves clean, and ours are — remarkably clean.”

In 2004 the council named Newport Beach a “beach buddy” for its proactive efforts to keep its coastal waters clean. Kiff said the city has tried a variety of methods to clean up or stop runoff, including extra street sweeping, storm drain filters, and diverting runoff water into the sewer system.

Orange County Health Care Agency environmental specialist Monica Mazur said many of the Orange County beaches criticized in the council’s report have clean records during dry weather and get good scores from Heal the Bay, another environmental group.

“When a lay person reads this and they see ‘beach bummer’ Â… it’s putting the entire wrong picture, so once again Orange County beaches have a black eye when in fact those are A and A-plus beaches,” Mazur said.

To view the Natural Resources Defense Council’s report, visit www.nrdc.org.