SOS for Coastal Waters

Last month’s dismal report card on the water quality at local beaches is just one compelling argument for the sort of national agenda that the Navy and the Department of Commerce will discuss with environmental groups next week in Monterey at a conference that the president and vice president plan to attend.

In its annual tests of Santa Monica and South Bay beaches, Heal the Bay found that El Nino-fueled rains increased sewer runoff and storm drain overflows, creating the worst water conditions in the eight years the environmental group has been monitoring. Water quality in the north Santa Monica Bay could be especially bad through July.

The storm runoff that has played havoc with beaches here is one of a broad set of problems that plague ocean waters around the nation. Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey and New York all have issued statewide advisories for their coastal waters in recent years. The severity of this year’s problem is also a compelling argument for a coordinated national agenda to improve ocean health. Taking the first steps toward that kind of agenda is the goal of the National Ocean Conference.

From this country’s earliest days, Americans have depended to an extraordinary extent on the oceans for food, commerce and recreation. Over 95% of U.S. foreign trade passes through our ports and harbors. Fishing--both commercial and recreational--and seashore tourism generate annual revenue in the billions of dollars.

These activities have taken their toll. One-third of all U.S. marine fisheries are now overfished, with some aquatic species simply dying out. Pollution threatens beach-goers as well as marine wildlife, and increasingly dense economic and residential development along the seashore has compounded these problems.

Congress and the states have taken steps to address these problems over the years, but enforcement and coordination are spotty and often underfunded. In many areas, new, tougher standards are needed, for example to measure and control urban runoff or to prevent overfishing. In others, funds are needed to safeguard fragile marine ecosystems, such as offshore coral reefs, from the impact of further development.

The Monterey conference will bring together a who’s who of environmental groups, government agencies and other stakeholder groups. Their goal is to get Congress and the Clinton administration thinking systematically about this problem by defining and funding a specific agenda for ocean protection. That agenda would include drafting and applying one set of health standards to all the nation’s ocean waters; projecting the anticipated supply and demand for U.S. ocean and coastal resources, and a review of contradictory and duplicative coastal regulation by state and federal governments.

The attendance of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore is, we hope, a signal of commitment. The next step should be congressional passage of a pending bill that would continue the needed planning through the appointment of a national commission on ocean policy.