Water Testing
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors is mistaken: $165,000 is not too great a price for testing the water along Ventura County beaches considering the price for not doing water testing.
The recent release of a report by Natural Resources Defense Council implicated urbanization and intermittent sewage spills as a major threat to our coastal water quality.
An additional threat to coastal waters that is being sidestepped is the problem of agricultural run-off. Records from the Department of Pesticide Regulation show growers using millions of pounds of toxic pesticides on Ventura County fields. Adding in the millions of pounds of secret inert ingredients (legally, “inerts” can be more toxic than the active ingredient listed on the label) in those pesticides, the potential for a super-toxic, synergistic mix migrating down rivers and drainage systems to co-mingle with sewage and other urban run-off is alarming.
If we know that some pesticides cause genetic damage by altering DNA, what happens when those pesticides meet raw sewage? Do we want that on our wet skin in order to save a lousy $165,000?
One thing is for sure: When unmonitored water becomes polluted, the creatures along the shore become the sacrificial warning system for the rest of us. In many states, the shoreline inhabitants are frogs. In California, it’s our children. The Board of Supervisors should make water testing and posting warnings at beaches a priority, immediately.
DEBORAH BECHTEL, Camarillo
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