Bacteria Pump Planned : Marina del Rey Swimming Ban May End Soon

County officials hope to remove a swimming ban at Marina del Rey’s only beach with the help of a water circulation pump that will be installed soon.

Health department officials last October ordered a ban on swimming at beaches along Santa Monica Bay because the water was found to be contaminated by a sewage spill that month at nearby Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant.

Most beaches were declared safe several days after the spill. But for reasons unknown to county beach and harbor officials, the weekly fecal bacteria count at the marina’s beach has usually remained above safe levels.

Reasons Unknown

“There have been several times when it (the bacteria count) dropped within limits and then shot up again,” said Larry Charness, chief of planning for beaches and harbors, which administers county-owned Marina del Rey. “We could not correlate why that was happening.”

The marina’s beach is dubbed “Mothers’ Beach” because mothers with small children often used the beach’s shallow, placid waters at the end of a basin there.

Charness said an unknown source of pollution and the poor circulation rate of the waters at the beach have contributed to the high bacteria count.

The county recently sealed numerous minor leaks in nearby sewage lines in case leaking sewage has caused the growth of bacteria.

Lower Bacteria Levels

But Charness said the county’s $60,000 circulation pump will lower bacteria levels even if the source of the pollution is not found. The pump, which will be placed in 10 to 15 feet of water just outside the swimming zone, will mix air from a pipe at the surface with cleaner water from deeper in the marina and force it toward the beach area at the rate of 1,100 gallons a minute. Mixing the water with air will add oxygen to the water, which will retard the growth of bacteria, Charness said.

“We are very hopeful that with the sewer (line repair) and the aerator pump we will be able to get back down to acceptable (bacteria) levels again,” Charness said.

The county will turn on the pump by April 8, and if tests show a significant reduction in bacteria officials may open the beach later that month.

“I think we will let it run a week or two and make sure we have a stable situation before we open it again,” Charness said.

Charness said health department officials have also tested for a range of toxic metals and chemicals and have not found anything at a level that is harmful to humans.

But environmentalists claim that the waters in the marina are not tested for a broad enough range of pollutants.

“They are not testing for the broad spectrum of chemicals and industrial pollutants that must be finding their way into the waters,” said Dorothy Green, president of Heal the Bay. “A lot of stuff in the marina and the bay should not be there and is causing problems with people’s health.”

Health Problems

Green said her position is based on interviews with people who said they have had health problems stemming from their exposure to the marina’s waters. Her group has not conducted a scientific study of the area.

“But what I do know leads me to believe there are a lot of other problems there that need to be researched,” she said. “I wouldn’t take my kids there.”

Researchers from the University of Southern California have found high levels of tributyltin, known as TBT, near the beach. TBT, which was added to boat paint until the state Legislature banned its use as of this year, is highly toxic to some marine life. TBT-laced boat paint was used to protect boats from marine growths.

But scientists have determined that the chemical is not harmful to humans except at extremely high levels, Charness said. “Studies on humans have not indicated TBTs cause any problems other than a rash at very high dosages,” which usually occurs when working with it commercially, he said.

But the state of the marina’s water is not a concern of Kathy Collins, who, despite the ban and recent warnings from lifeguards, has continued to take her daily swim at the beach, as she has for the last four years.

“This time of year, the water always looks a little dark,” she said. “But I have never, ever gotten sick there.”