Others Follow O.C.’s Lead on Water Testing

California’s coastal communities will follow Orange County’s lead and step up testing for ocean pollution and posting more warning signs near contaminated waters.

The rules take effect nearly two years after the Legislature approved a plan to provide counties with uniform rules for measuring ocean water quality.

Orange County--which in 1998 posted a record number of pollution-related beach closings--expanded its ocean testing program in March in anticipation of the new regulations.

And earlier this week, the county began abiding by new standards for posting pollution warnings: Visitors to Newport Harbor were warned Wednesday about high bacterial levels in part the result of storm drains at 38th and 43rd streets.

Health officials, environmentalists and others praised the long-delayed approval of the regulations, saying beachgoers will be able to make more informed decisions about when the ocean is too polluted for swimming.

“The tests give us some good, real-time information now and we can keep the public better informed,” said Larry Honeybourne, chief of the Water Quality Section of the Orange County Health Care Agency. “It’s very protective of public health.”

Mark Gold, executive director of Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay, predicted the public will see a sharp increase in the number of beaches that are flagged as contaminated--and be safer for it.

“We are fortunate to have the strongest bathing water standards program in the nation,” he said.

In the past, health officials in coastal counties made their own decisions about how to determine the safety of ocean waters. Some tested just once a month at a few locations. Others might sample only for one so-called “indicator” bacteria that proved to be an imprecise gauge of the health risk.

Under the regulations issued this week by the state office of administrative law, counties must take samples once a week at beaches visited by at least 50,000 people a year.

The regulations require sampling for a wider range of organisms, including the ubiquitous coliform bacteria that has previously been measured, but also enterococcus and fecal coliforms.

Scientists have determined that the presence of fecal coliforms and enterococcus and the ratio of those organisms to others is a better indicator of human health risks than a simple test for coliforms, an organism found in a huge array of plants and animals.

When any one of the bacteria reaches a certain level, signs must be posted warning ocean swimmers about the potential for illness, the regulations say. Each county will also be required to maintain a hotline to inform the public which beaches are contaminated or, in extreme cases, closed.

About $1 million has been allocated by the state to help counties pay for increased ocean sampling.

“This is the culmination of a multiyear effort to grant Californians the basic right to know the safety of the beaches they recreate at, whether in San Diego, Santa Barbara or Santa Cruz,” said Assemblyman Howard Wayne (D-San Diego), who wrote the bathing water standard law.

The measurements attempt to focus on swimming spots contaminated with human waste. State officials decided to make such pollution the focus of their ocean testing because of a 1996 health study in Santa Monica Bay.

The study by a USC researcher surveyed thousands of ocean bathers and found that people swimming in water near storm drains polluted with human waste were almost 50% more likely to get colds, sore throats, diarrhea and other illnesses than those who swim in cleaner water.

Scientists have since spent considerable time attempting to track down the source of viruses associated with human waste. But public health officials agree that bathers can swim safely if they simply avoid the relatively small areas contaminated by storm drain runoff.

Most Orange County beaches get top ratings for water quality, but a number of critical places, particularly off Seal Beach, have high levels of bacteria. Pollution generated by fierce El Nino storms prompted officials to close Orange County beaches more than 40 times in 1998, marking the worst year for coastal water quality in more than a decade.