S.D., L.A. Counties Top Fouled-Beaches Listing : Pollution: Sewage spills were top cause. Big San Diego spills this year will make next listing even worse.

More than 2,000 beaches were closed along the U.S. coast in 1991 when raw sewage threatened human health, and nearly 40% of the closings were in Southern California, a nationwide environmental group said Thursday.

Of the 22 coastal states surveyed, 14 reported beach closures. California, with 745 beach closings, was the highest in the nation. Of those, 588 were in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

Officials in San Diego County said findings for 1992 figure to be even worse because the study fails to consider the rupture of an outfall pipe in Point Loma in February that caused one of the worst sewage spills in the nation’s history.

Beaches were closed from the international border to the San Diego River in Ocean Beach for more than two months as bacteria counts soared to more than 1,000 times the legal limit.

Beach-goers in the nation were probably at far greater risk than the study indicated because 10 states as well as some California counties do not regularly test waters for contamination.

“Warning is really imperative,” said Ann Notthoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “People have a right to know what risk they’re taking when swimming at the beach. Any stomachache you get you get from going to the beach ought to be from eating too many French fries, not from the last wave you caught,” she told a Santa Monica press conference.

Swimming in even marginally polluted waters can cause illness, the NRDC said. Gastroenteritis is the most common swimming-associated illness. Usual symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, stomachache, sometimes accompanied by fever. Eye, ear, sinus and wound infections are also common. Children are particularly susceptible.

Pollution sources include sewer overflows from overburdened or antiquated sewage treatment systems, inadequate sewage treatment and contaminated water runoff from industrial sites, city streets and farms during storms.

Gary Stephany, director of environmental health services for San Diego County, said the figures for 1991 may “pale in comparison” to next year’s findings.

The rupture of San Diego’s massive sewage outfall pipe, which spewed as much as 180 million gallons a day of partly treated waste only three-quarters of a mile from shore from Feb. 2 until April 10, closed 20 miles of beaches for 2 1/2 months.

Flooding during the same period caused raw sewage to overflow the Tijuana River, making it impossible for a diversion pump at the international border to process Mexican waste, as it usually does, and send it through San Diego’s Point Loma treatment plant.

Stephany said beach closings are compiled on a fiscal-year basis but that “more than three-quarters” of the shutdowns in San Diego County occurred in the first six months of 1992. From July 1, 1991, until July 1, 1992, the county recorded 76 closures over 592 days.

Stephany said it was “something of a misnomer” for the Washington-based environmental group to list Mission Bay, the “international boundary” and Buccaneer Beach near Oceanside as “permanent” closings.

Only a small part of coast at the international border is closed “permanently”--the beach near Border Field State Park that separates Tijuana from San Ysidro, he said.

About 300 feet of Mission Bay is “permanently” closed because of runoff from a storm drain, he said.

“It’s near Crown Point, where the wildlife refuge is,” Stephany said. “It’s not even a beach, really. You can’t get to it except by boat. But we’ve always gotten bad readings, so we keep it closed.”

He said a strip of Buccaneer Beach in North San Diego County at one time had been “permanently” closed because of poor readings. But, since April 30, the city of Oceanside has diverted storm-drain runoff into the sewer system, allowing the reopening of Buccaneer Beach.

In announcing the latest findings, the NRDC renewed its call for uniform nationwide standards for testing coastal waters and closing beaches.

“Inconsistent policies among states means that Americans can’t be confident they’re swimming in safe water,” Notthoff said.

Stephany applauded the call for a national policy, saying bacterial testing could fall victim to budget cuts in San Diego County as it has in other municipalities.

“I see these travel magazines that list the so-called ‘best beaches in America,’ one being Santa Barbara. But Santa Barbara and Ventura hardly even test any more because they just can’t afford it,” Stephany said. “Beaches on the East Coast and farther north of here don’t get a black eye, simply because they’ve quit testing.

“If you had a national policy, you’d theoretically protect swimmers at every beach in the country. But, if they do it, they’ve got to figure out how to pay for it, and nowadays, that’s the hard part.”

Robert Simmons, a University of San Diego law professor who is acting as special counsel to the Sierra Club in a federal lawsuit against the city of San Diego over waste-treatment policies, also commended national testing.

Simmons blamed the “increasing risk” to the nation’s beaches on inadequate sewage treatment. He said San Diego’s method of advanced primary treatment, which removes about 75% of the suspended solids in the effluent, contributes to the problem.

“The law has been too long flouted by San Diego, and their method of sewage treatment must be upgraded to secondary as soon as possible,” Simmons said, referring to a process that removes about 90% of the solids and which is mandated under the U.S. Clean Water Act.

“That’s compounded by the addition of Mexican sewage, which carries a heavy burden of pathogens,” Simmons said. “And, they have no disinfection at the Point Loma treatment plant,” which serves 1.7 million residents in San Diego County.

Stephany disagreed with Simmons, saying the overflow of raw sewage from storm drains in and around the county is more of a problem than how the sewage is treated once it arrives at Point Loma.

“Ninety percent of our breaks happen, not because of the outfall pipe, but because of breakdowns in the infrastructure leading to the pipe,” Stephany said. “The infrastructure fails, and it goes into the nearest creek or storm drain. A national program to monitor storm drains has been proposed, but again, who’s going to pay for it? That’s what we’re all wrestling with.”

The city of San Diego recently agreed to fund more than $1 billion in sewer-related improvements, including a massive upgrading of the city’s sewage collection system. In addition, the city agreed to expand the Point Loma outfall pipe and increase its depth.

But so far, city officials have balked at upgrading to secondary treatment, saying it costs too much.

Ten states fail to regularly monitor ocean pollution. They are Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Washington.

Seven of 17 California coastal or bay counties do not monitor regularly, including Santa Barbara County, the group said. The rest are in Northern California. They are the counties of Marin, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte. Alameda and San Mateo counties monitor only once a month and, in San Mateo’s case, only when volunteers are available, the report said.

The high number of beach closings in Southern California does not necessarily mean that coastal waters here are more contaminated than other regions. The environmental group said water monitoring by Southern California counties generally ranks among the best in the nation.

Los Angeles and Orange counties, for example, monitor coastal waters.

At the urging of environmental groups led by Heal the Bay and American Oceans Campaign, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last February also adopted a detailed water monitoring program and plan for warning beach-goers of contamination.

San Diego County monitors five times a year at beach and bay stations, and weekly near the Mexican border, the NRDC said. It reported that Ventura County monitors only after a complaint or a known sewage spill.