Environmental Group Urges More Monitoring of Beaches

Los Angeles County beaches were closed nearly 50 days last year because of pollution--a record that is preferable to the situation at beaches elsewhere in California and across the country, where beach water isn’t tested and swimming is almost never prohibited, an environmental group said Tuesday.

Los Angeles beaches were closed 48 days in 1996--down from 70 closures the year before. But in its seventh annual beach report, the Natural Resources Defense Council suggested that the decline was more likely because of fewer rainy days than because of better pollution controls.

Los Angeles escaped being named to the group’s 1996 list of “Beach Bums,” swimming areas that host several million visitors each year but have no consistent water monitoring program or procedures to alert swimmers to potential health risks.

On this year’s bad list: Myrtle Beach, S.C., with 12 million visitors annually; North Carolina’s Outer Banks, with 7 million users; Puerto Rico, with 4 million visitors; Panama City, Fla., with 3 million; and Key West Florida, with 2 million, the NRDC said.

In California, there were 1,054 beach closures or advisories last year.

Orange County, which like Los Angeles has weekly monitoring along all of its coastline, closed beaches 96 times, not including Baby Beach in Dana Point Harbor, which was closed until Tuesday, and an extended closure at the Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach.

Ventura County, with no regular monitoring program, closed San Buenaventura State Park Beach for three days because of a sewage spill.

Only seven states comprehensively monitor their beach water for pollution: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Ohio. Eight states have no regular monitoring: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina and Washington.

California has no mandatory testing program, leaving water quality monitoring and beach closures up to counties.

Counties including Ventura, Marin and Humboldt have no monitoring program, according to NRDC officials, who contend that, although there are fewer beach closures in those areas, there is greater risk to the public.

“L.A. monitors and therefore you’d expect to see closures,” NRDC lawyer David Beckman said at a news conference on the sands in front of a storm drain in Pacific Palisades. “A county that doesn’t report any beach closures because it doesn’t monitor may not be any better. In fact, it may be worse.”

And in a state with some of the most popular beaches in the country, that monitoring should be mandatory and regulated, said Tom Subak of the California Public Interest Research Group, which is endorsing the NRDC’s call for legislation.

“If the water quality at our beaches isn’t being monitored regularly, people literally don’t know what they are getting into,” Subak said.

To that end, the NRDC and CALPIRG are supporting state and national “beach bills” that would require beach water testing and public notification if the bacteria level is above a state-set limit.

The California measure, sponsored by Assemblyman Howard Wayne (D-San Diego), includes provisions requiring counties to post signs when beach water reaches the unhealthful stage and to establish a 24-hour hotline number to inform the public about closures.

Similar bills are expected at the national level, the NRDC said.

Even as the two groups lauded certain communities for effective monitoring and notification--including two Southern California beaches, Venice and Windansea in San Diego--they also said that putting a stop to beach pollution should be the ultimate goal.

Locally, most of the contamination comes from storm water runoff, even during the dry season. Swimming near storm drains, according to the NRDC report, poses an increased risk of colds, fever, chills, sore throats, diarrhea and other complications.

“It sounds so trite, but if every one of the 10 million people in L.A. County did a few things--curb your dog, don’t leave motor oil and household waste where the rain can pick it up--that cumulative impact is big,” Beckman said.

Nationally, top monitoring and notification ratings went to Cape May, N.J. and Jones Beach, N.Y.

Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Ocean City, Md., Virginia Beach, Va., and Hawaii’s Oahu beaches received intermediate marks.