LAGUNA BEACH : County Will Restart Tests of Offshore Pollution

With surfers complaining that the waters at some local beaches are polluted, Orange County officials are arranging to resume a water-testing program that was halted by the bankruptcy.

The program, which tested ocean waters from Seal Beach to San Clemente weekly, will be cobbled together in what Larry Paul, manager of the county’s Environmental Management Agency’s coastal division, called “a rescue format.”

“We’re very, very concerned about the water quality,” Paul told the Laguna Beach City Council Tuesday night as surfers, teachers and doctors described an increasing number of infections bedeviling local swimmers. “It’s a one-year rescue effort.”

The program, which was previously handled by the Orange County Health Care Agency and paid by the county’s general fund, was axed after the bankruptcy. But Paul said the Environmental Management Agency has decided to resurrect it, using existing staff to minimize the cost.

“You want to know if the water is safe to use,” Paul said Wednesday. “The only way to know is to monitor it, to test it on a regular basis.” The Board of Supervisors will be asked to endorse the plan on Tuesday, Paul said.

Members of the Laguna Beach branch of the Surfrider Foundation, who continued water testing after the county stopped, have complained that the waters are polluted, even at the popular Main Beach.

Local beach water has endured a series of sewer spills in recent years and is dirtied by runoff, much of which flows to the ocean from inland cities via storm drains.