ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Let’s Save the Bay, but Do It Right

Much remains to be done to protect Newport Bay from pollution. In a recent report, the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board noted that despite a 73% decrease in wastes flowing into the bay this year, more than half a ton a day of nitrate-nitrogen, which produces a thick, green slime of algae, still finds its way into the water.

These algae blooms suffocate life in the fragile marine environment, cutting off oxygen to fish and small marine animals. The wastes wash into the bay from San Diego Creek, which makes its way through business and agricultural areas of Irvine and collects runoff from the coastal communities in the area.

As a result of cleanup efforts to date, algae blooms have been diminished, mostly by limiting the discharge of nurseries and by getting them to install recycling or irrigation monitoring equipment. Experts aren’t sure exactly where the mysterious half ton is coming from, but the suspects include sewage dumped by boats and a wide variety of wastes running into the creek--pollutants from fertilizer used on lawns and greenbelts, or industrial toxic metals.

Not a moment too soon the federal Environmental Protection Agency this year required local U.S. officials to begin addressing urban runoff in waterways. Pollution that threatens bays and estuaries comes from many places and often is directly traceable to everyday activities in the home and workplace. That means all a bay’s neighbors, not just the nurseries, share responsibility in self-policing.

The recent designation of Upper Newport Bay as an ecological reserve was a remarkable achievement--the result of a long battle to protect an environmentally sensitive area from indiscriminate development. But the threat of pollution from runoff is more insidious than overdevelopment because it is not such an easy and visible target.

The battle must be waged by all surrounding communities. Failure to do so puts the bay at risk and invites more stringent controls.