Beach Water Pollution Tests May Resume : Public health: The proposed one-year program would spread costs among several agencies. Financing was halted because of the county’s bankruptcy.

In a move that will affect the safety of millions of beach users this summer, Orange County’s Environmental Management Agency has proposed resuming a highly touted weekly water testing program that was stopped because of the bankruptcy.

Larry Paul, EMA’s coastal manager, said the county has put together a one-year program at minimal cost that involves an alliance with other agencies, sharing of test results, sampling performed by the Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol, corporate contributions and help from outside groups such as the Surfrider Foundation.

“It’s a novel thing,” Paul said, “one that has not been done in Orange County before, but there’s enough interest for this program that we need it.”

The tests, like before, will measure fecal coliform, which is an indicator of sewage and filth.

The program was stopped in January as a cost-cutting measure after the county’s $1.7-billion investment fund loss. The county’s Health Care Agency then was in charge of testing 120 spots along 42 miles of coastline at a cost of $184,000.

The new program, which will test 80 sites along the same stretch and cost $80,000, already has the support of Supervisors Marian Bergeson and Jim Silva, Paul said. It will be proposed Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Bergeson, whose district includes the coastline from San Clemente to Newport Beach, said her office has heard from many residents concerned about the safety of the county’s coastal waters.

The testing is important “not only to surfers and swimmers but to those concerned with public health,” Bergeson said. “I anticipate this will be strongly supported by the board, because it’s also important to tourism and the entire coastal area.”

There is “nothing as dampening as signs that say, you can’t go into the water,” she added.

Nancy Gardner, a spokeswoman for Surfrider’s Newport Beach chapter, said: “We were really concerned, because coliform testing tells people whether or not the water is safe to swim in. This is vital because you can’t see anything that may harm you in the water. And it’s timely, particularly with the summer months coming up when more people want to use the water.”

Gardner said the Surf Industry Manufacturers Assn. recently gave the chapter nearly $10,000 for water testing near the Pelican Hill Golf Course. Paul said he plans to go after more contributions like that.

The county terminated its testing program in a month that Orange County experienced a record rainfall and millions of gallons of urban runoff were swept down creeks and rivers into the ocean.

Runoff raised coliform bacteria levels, according to officials from Surfrider, which conducted their own tests. But dirty runoff combined with a nasty, red tide containing millions of dead microorganisms. Swimming in red tide can cause skin irritation and possibly sinus infections. Unfortunately, the red tide lingered off the coast for months.

“That red tide lasted at least three months,” said Capt. Steve Seim of Huntington Beach’s Marine Safety Department. “It faded in and out. It would be here for a week, and then dissipate, go offshore. Then you would see it come back in. Now, we’re just getting to where we don’t have that red sheen any longer.”

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The phenomenon called red tide is caused by a massive buildup of microscopic organisms when plankton blooms and dies, turning the water a murky brown but producing a stunning, bioluminescence at night. Heavy rains and runoff have triggered one of the largest and longest-lasting red tides to visit the Southern California coast in years. This one, experts say, probably was precipitated by the runoff of various soil nutrients into the ocean after the major storms earlier this year.

Seim said lifeguards are “very happy” the county is trying to resume water testing.

“Not only for the public’s sake,” Seim said, “but we have people in the water every day, training, and we would like to see test results to help pick which days to train and whether we need beach closures.”

The cancellation of the water testing had angered people who go in the ocean daily, said Michelle Kremer, an attorney and Surfrider’s environmental affairs director.

“The reaction among our members was frustration and disgust,” Kremer said. “Our members feel that the water’s already polluted enough, and if there’s no testing, and no bulletins or warnings posted, then surfers don’t know what condition the water’s in.”

Dr. William C. Anderson, a Laguna Beach physician, said that last summer for the first time he began seeing ear infections, “classical swimmer’s ear,” as a result of coliform bacteria.

“I asked them, ‘Have you been in a Jacuzzi or swimming pool?’ ” Anderson said. “You usually see this from Jacuzzis because the chlorine boils off and someone else who has an infection leaves it in a Jacuzzi, which is a good percolating broth for the germ. But they said no. They got it swimming in the ocean. This to me is an observation that people are now able to get this in contaminated ocean water.”

Surfers, Anderson said, are more prone to infections than normal.

“You sew their cuts and scraps up, and they get infected. So now I regularly give them antibiotics,” he said.

Whether these infections are a result of polluted water is uncertain. Although a combination of red tide and high coliform levels may in fact lead to ear, throat, nose and mouth infections and flu, county health officials are uncertain how widespread those illnesses are, because most go unreported.

Terrence McCann, who surfs daily and is president of Surfrider Foundation, said he has been sick twice in the past month.

“Runoff was very bad the first time I got sick,” McCann said. “I called my son-in-law and told him, and he said many of his friends were getting sick too.”

McCann, 61, who spoke in a raspy voice, said he returned from a business trip last week, surfed two mornings and contracted a throat infection.

“There’s no question, we need some type of water quality testing,” McCann said.