BETTER WATER WORLD? For nearly 25 years,...

BETTER WATER WORLD? For nearly 25 years, the county tested coastal waters for coliform bacteria. But that program went down the drain with the recent bankruptcy. . . . Now environmental management officials have devised a scaled-back version for $80,000--less than half the old cost--but can’t afford even that. So Newport Beach and the Surfrider Foundation will help pick up the tab. They’re putting on a 5K run Oct. 14 on the Balboa Peninsula.

MAINE DINING ROOM: Even with jet lag, they should be delicious. As a benefit fund-raiser for Saddleback Community Enterprises, several crates of live Maine lobsters will be flown into John Wayne Airport on Sept. 1--then whisked straight to Cost Plus World Market in Mission Viejo, for a two-day party where you can buy them. . . . “Yeah, it’s an offbeat kind of idea,” says Michelle Andstadt, spokeswoman for the group, which job trains the mentally disabled. . . . Your cost: $15 for a 1 1/2 pounder. But then, they’ll boil it for you.

POWERFUL START: Despite suffering from a sprained ankle, 16-year-old Tanya Carr of Laguna Hills took a bronze medal in the recent USA Power Tumbling national championships in Denver--her very first event. Because of the ankle, she says, “I really didn’t expect to win anything. But I guess the adrenaline took over.” Carr represents the Orange County Tumbling Academy in Irvine. . . . Organizers hope to turn it into an Olympic event--2004 is their goal.

LEGAL FEES: Chapman University has the main ingredients for its new law school this fall: a faculty, 120 students and a temporary site in Anaheim. What’s needed now is a lot more cash. . . . But Chapman got a huge boost in recent weeks with its second professorship endowment. This one, for $250,000, came from Henry Salvatori through his Los Angeles-based foundation--his second to the university. . . . Says its dean, Jeremy Miller: “Critics told us we couldn’t raise funds because people don’t like lawyers.”