Federal Help Sought to Find Contaminant

Hoping to avert an environmental and economic disaster, U.S. and state officials said Thursday they are seeking federal help to find and fix the mysterious sewage leak that has closed Huntington Beach for most of the summer.

The source of the leak has eluded an array of high-tech sleuthing from ground-penetrating radar to offshore sonar.

With 4.2 miles of the coast now closed to swimmers and surfers, officials and merchants are bracing for a financially disastrous Labor Day weekend. To lure visitors, the city said Thursday it will lower the beach parking fee to $1 a day, down from $7.

“They can still play on the sand, walk along the pier or on the bicycle trail, and also help support our local businesses,” said Ray Silver, city administrator.

Attendance at Huntington State Beach is down a third, said Don Ito, state parks superintendent. It has drawn just 139,576 visitors this year, he said, compared to 206,232 for the same period of 1998.

Meanwhile, the cost of searching for the leak has topped $400,000.

U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said Thursday: “What I’m trying to do is mobilize the government’s agencies to at least consult with local agencies and bring their technical expertise here.”

The Huntington Beach Republican, himself a surfer, said he has requested help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Coast Guard has offered boats and helicopters, and Los Angeles County has offered laboratory analysis and other help. Also, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is giving searchers satellite photos that might provide clues about the source of the leak.

Rohrabacher, joined by Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), Mayor Peter M. Green and county Supervisor Jim Silva, applauded “a high level of cooperation among local agencies. We have a system in place. But our quandary is we cannot find the source.”

Ocean water tests Thursday showed a reduction in bacteria levels to within safety standards along most of the beach. But pollution above an acceptable level remained in a three-quarter-mile stretch between Brookhurst and Newland streets. To ensure a safe buffer zone, health officials left in place the yellow police tape cordoning off the entire 4.2-mile stretch.

The closure of a smaller area was ordered July 1 after routine water testing found enterococcus, an indicator of raw sewage and fecal material from warm-blooded animals, exceeding the state standard of 104 bacteria per hundred milliliters.

Sanitation officials went airborne Thursday night aboard a police helicopter with an infrared camera to try to detect any sewage. The result of the flight should be available today, officials said.

Part of the problem is that the sewage plume does not have a consistent pattern. It is detected, then slowly dissipated by ocean winds and currents as it travels up and down coast.

The plume actually disappeared for a week but returned where it was first spotted at Huntington State Beach, 9,000 feet north of the Santa Ana River near Newland.

Even if bacteria levels fall to safe levels, county health officials have made clear that they will not reopen the beach until the source of the leak is found and fixed.

“We have had days where we were well within the standards as far as our samplings are concerned,” said Larry W. Honeybourne, chief of the Water Quality Section of the county Health Care Agency. “But as long as the source is not eliminated we cannot reopen the beach.”

Pressure is mounting, especially from the business community of a city that draws about 11 million visitors a year, making Huntington one of the state’s most popular beaches.

At a multi-agency task force meeting Thursday, a representative of the developer of the Waterfront Hilton resort told water and sanitation officials that the economic toll could be high.

“This beach may not be able to continue to employ our people. In fact, for a lot of people their jobs are on the line, including mine,” said Shawn K. Millbern, senior vice president for developer Robert Mayer Corp. in Newport Beach.

“We have 600 employees and we’re attempting to build a resort that can hire another 1,000 people and that’s been put on hold because of this,” he said. “Next week, some Virginia investors are visiting, and we’re not looking forward at telling them we don’t have a damned answer as to when the beach will be reopened.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Beach Battle

Officials are searching by land, air and sea to find the source of contamination at Huntington Beach:

SEA: boat used sonar to search for uncharted or forgotten sewer lines. Nothing found.

GROUND: radar-equipped truck scanned ground under bike path for uncharted pipes, pools or old stream beds. The radar found 12 areas with anomalies. Three-inch holes were drilled in those areas, and water samples were taken.

AIR: Thursday night, a helicopter scanned the coastline with infrared cameras to measure water temperatures. Fresh water, sea water and waste water would register differently. Officials are seeking anything unusual.

Source: Orange County Sanitation District