Hearing Plumbs Depth and Degree of Pollution in Newport Bay

John Cunningham hadn’t planned to mention his bum right hand at a special hearing Thursday called by Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) on pollution in Newport Bay.

But after hearing a noted physician talk about a disturbing increase in bacteria linked to human waste in the bay waters, the 47-year-old marine science teacher at Laguna Beach High School thought there could be a connection with a small cut he suffered last Dec. 22 that has turned into a serious infection of bone tissue.

“I got a small nick cutting a rope that got stuck in a propeller during the Christmas parade (the annual Festival of Lights),” Cunningham said. “My hand swelled up a week later, and 2 1/2 months after that, I had to have it surgically opened up.

“The doctors still haven’t identified the pathogen, but now it has developed into osteomylitis--and that is a direct result of this bay,” said Cunningham, who is also director of Friends of the Sea Lion Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach.

“I can speak from experience; there is something out there, and nobody knows what it is.”

Ferguson said he arranged Thursday’s hearing precisely because neither the extent nor the source of chemical and bacterial pollution in Orange County’s largest recreational boat harbor has been adequately determined.

More than a dozen people ranging from health and water experts to marine biologists, boaters, civic leaders, residents and even a junior high school student gave testimony in a conference room overlooking the docks at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.

What emerged is a picture of a harbor for an estimated 10,000 boats and one of Southern California’s most popular beaches, both of which may be polluted with high levels of known carcinogens such as DDT, a highly toxic pesticide banned in the United States in 1972, and PCB, a chemical widely used as an insulator for electrical transformers.

Dennis Kelly, an Orange Coast College marine science instructor, testified that two dozen ailing or dead dolphins and sea lions that have washed ashore from Seal Beach to San Clemente over the last two years “show the highest levels consistently of DDT and PCB in them of any mammals anywhere in the world.”

Autopsies, conducted for a study by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, found that the sea lions from Orange County coastal waters carried dangerously high levels of DDT ranging from 100 to 200 parts per million. Dolphins carried much higher levels ranging from 500 to 1,000 parts per million.

“If you had 500 parts per million of DDT in you, you would be dead,” Kelly said after the hearing.

Kelly said that a number of the mostly young dolphins bore evidence of uncommon diseases such as pneumonia, liver infection, stomach ulcers and lung lesions.

“The thing that’s really scary is that the dolphins, unlike the sea lions, are year-round residents off our coast,” Kelly said. “That means the dolphins are eating the same fish you and I eat--and they’re eating them every day.”

Newport Bay also appears to be a waterway choking from the dumping of human waste, silt runoff from farms and construction sites, and possibly toxic chemicals draining from household gutters, according to testimony given Thursday.

Dr. John F. Skinner, a Newport Beach specialist in internal medicine and an ocean sports enthusiast, testified that water samples taken by the county Health Care Agency from more than two dozen test sites over the last decade show gradually increasing levels of coliform and enterococci bacteria.

Both are found in the intestinal tract of humans and animals and are excreted along with other body wastes. Although they do not cause disease themselves, both are considered indicators of the presence of disease-causing bacteria and viral agents, Skinner said.

Coliform bacteria is also present in the soil and could therefore come from agricultural soil runoff. But Skinner said enterococci, which is generally associated with human and animal excretions, is a good indicator that at least part of the pollution problem may well be related to dumping of human waste in the bay.

Linked to Ailments

High levels of both bacteria in inland lakes or ponds have been linked to gastrointestinal ailments and as indicators of a bacterium that can cause a deadly form of meningitis.

Health authorities closed half of Upper Newport Bay to swimming in 1974 because of high counts of coliform. Skinner said, however, that neither has been present in levels high enough to warrant closure of beaches or the lower bay.

Since bacteria counts reached the highest levels on weekends, when more people are boating and bathing at the harbor, Skinner said people appear to be the problem.

“I don’t think we can blame it on the birds,” he said, referring to shore and water birds found in the wildlife sanctuary in Upper Newport Bay and ducks in the lower bay.

The solution, Skinner and others suggested, is to require more functioning sewage-pump stations in the harbor area. At present, he said there are only two at a single station on the outskirts of the bay serving 10,000 boats.

It is already illegal to discharge waste of any kind into the bay, but there is little or no enforcement, panelists said. Skinner suggested following the lead of Avalon Harbor officials, who posted signs warning that anyone dumping waste was subject to a $500 fine.

Cunningham, who was scheduled to testify about toxic chemicals found in marine mammals, revealed his serious hand infection instead, after listening to Skinner.

Reports of Sickness

Skinner doubted that either bacterium could have caused Cunningham’s infection. But he said it could well have been caused by some other bacteria in the water. Skinner said he has heard reports from other local residents who suffered bouts of diarrhea and vomiting after swimming in the bay.

Many said they also believe that the pollutants are carried into the harbor via silt runoff from San Diego Creek into the Upper Newport Bay. Storm drains carry gutter runoff from Orange County neighborhoods into the creek--runoff that is never treated, although it may contain cleaners, pesticides, fertilizers, paint thinners or anything else someone may wash down his gutter, Skinner said.

Kelly, however, is convinced that pesticides used on farms are a prime source of the toxic chemical pollution found in the bay.

He said testing done by the regional Water Quality Control District of minnows taken from the upper bay near the mouth of San Diego Creek last July carried higher levels of DDT than permitted under federal standards in fish sold for human consumption.

“In other words, if you sold those fish, you would get arrested,” Kelly said.

Kelly said he believes the DDT found in the fish is coming from a widely used agricultural pesticide called Dicofol, sold commercially as Kelthane, which he contends contains 14% of the toxic, highly effective insect killer.

Nathan Schieppati, 12, one of a group of concerned seventh-grade students from TeWinkle Intermediate School in Costa Mesa, said, “The poisons that are being dumped into the bay are killing underwater life . . . . Our main concern is that someday we won’t have any beaches to go to. What I want to know is, what can we do about it? What is being done about it?”

There were few concrete answers for the children. But panelists Ferguson, Newport Beach Mayor Phil Maurer and Ted Finster of the local regional Water Quality Control Board all vowed to plug away for answers, viable solutions--and the money to pay for both.

Ferguson, a freshman assemblyman, and others blamed the problems and lack of solutions on a duplication of effort and lack of coordination among state and local agencies charged with monitoring waterways. Maurer discussed imposing a boat-user fee for cleanup and prevention of pollution in the bay. However, Ferguson--a self-described conservative, a boater and longtime harbor resident--said he could not support fees because he believes current boat taxes and licensing fees are not used for waterways.

“Tidelands money (state revenue from oil pumped out of coastal areas), boat fees and property taxes of waterfront owners should be diverted into cleaning up the bay,” Ferguson said.