Beaches Still Closed After Weekend’s Sewage Spill

Eighteen miles of Los Angeles County coastline will remain closed at least through today while county health officials determine whether the water is safe for swimming after nearly 8 million gallons of sewage spilled into Santa Monica Bay over the weekend.

Despite warning signs, the beach closures did not deter visitors Monday. For example, at Topanga State Beach, a number of people were enjoying their holiday on the sand. Several surfers, undaunted by the closure, braved the surf. Authorities did not intervene.

Health officials will test water samples--taken from various points from Topanga Beach to the Palos Verdes peninsula--for coliform bacteria, which survive for about 48 hours in saltwater and are indicators of hazardous wastes that can cause diarrhea and other intestinal problems. If the results show a continually high bacteria count, the beaches will remain closed longer, said Jack Petralia, director of environmental protection for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

“Coliform only says that there may be a risk of disease and that’s all,” Petralia said. “They are an indicator of disease-causing organisms in the sewage. They can be caused by the soil, from animal droppings, and from other things, but the specific organisms which would cause the diseases would be viruses or bacteria.”

Since Monday’s samples “may be high also,” Petralia said beaches will probably not reopen until Wednesday.

But officials from Hyperion Treatment Plant in Playa Del Rey, which diverted the 7.6 million gallons of partly treated waste Saturday, said the beach water is safe because the sewage had been carefully treated with high dosages of chlorine, which lowered coliform counts.

Hyperion’s environmental monitoring division, which conducts daily bacteria counts, reported that the coliform count was high after the sewage was first dumped, but the most recent tests showed that it had fallen dramatically, said Sam Cheng, the division’s acting manager.

“Environmentally, we did the best we could,” Cheng said. “If there is another storm, it’s possible that this (sewage overflow) will happen again. But at least we feel really good that we can provide a pretty good bacterial kill.”

Normally, much of the sewage from the area is routed to Ballona Creek, north of Playa del Rey, and is treated with chlorine there, said Hyperion plant manager John T. Crosse. But because the heavy rains from the recent storm added to the regular waste runoff, city officials ordered the sewage to be spilled into the ocean to prevent it from overflowing onto city streets, he said.

“What we are really trying to do is to educate the public that whatever ends up on the streets ends up in the ocean,” said Hyperion plant manager John T. Crosse. “There are other places up and down the coast which discharge into Santa Monica Bay, but by far, Ballona is the biggest. We are looking at ways to deal with storm runoff, but that’s still a major problem.”

Plagued with an aging sewage system and booming population growth, the city has periodically dumped waste into the bay and has launched a $4-billion campaign to reinforce normal sewage conditions and to deal with overflow from storms. But new sewage lines will not be completed until 1993, Crosse said.

Environmental activists, outraged about the sewage dumping, remain skeptical about how clean the water is. And many are not sure that chlorinated treatment of waste is the best solution.

“It’s better than nothing that we have this system, that they are doing some settling out of the waste and then clorinating the heck out of it,” said Mark Gold, staff scientist for Heal the Bay. “But the thing is, no one looks at the consequences of the chlorine, which can produce a lot of toxic compounds. Is it really better to knock down some bacteria while producing toxic compounds at the same time?”

Meanwhile, among the beachgoers at Topanga on Monday was Kenny Davis, 37, of Marlow, Okla. Two weeks ago, Davis arrived in Southern California, expecting to see “beautiful beaches.” A few days after he arrived, the oil tanker American Trader dumped 394,000 gallons of oil onto the coast of Huntington Beach. A little more than a week later, sewage was dumped onto the beaches of Santa Monica.

“Mother Nature, you’ve got to figure, she’s got to be pretty mad at us now,” Davis said.