Mostly Sunny Outlook for Beaches

OK, it’s finally warm enough to go to the beach.

You’ll find out that life has changed on Los Angeles County’s 70 miles of coastline. Authorities say people are littering less than they used to along the sand.

Crime is down.

And although water quality has not improved over last year, there are significant efforts being taken to correct that.

“People are just more aware today of the importance of keeping the coastline healthy and clean,” said Gloria Gonzalez, an assistant with the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based environmental group, recently released a report blaming the poor water quality at beaches in the county on this year’s sporadic downpours and the lingering effects of last year’s El Nino-fueled storms.

The group’s annual report, which ranked 61 coastal locations, grades beaches on a scale of A to F, with an F going to those where the amount of fecal bacteria is high, along with the risk of contracting illness.

22 Sites Received Failing Winter Grades

According to the report, county beaches received about the same grades as last year, with 22 sites getting failing grades during the wet season, when the rains wash more harmful contaminants into the ocean than during the dry season.

Among the spots that flunked, the report singled out Mother’s Beach in Marina del Rey, Surfrider Beach in Malibu and Cabrillo Beach inside the breakwater at San Pedro as having some of the most polluted water along the coast from Long Beach to the Ventura County line.

Heal the Bay Director Mark Gold said conditions at the worst beaches are usually caused by poor water circulation. “The water [at those sites] is like a bathtub, where every pollutant that comes in just seems to sit there,” he said.

Persistent pollution problems have been found at storm drains and channels near some of the area’s most popular swimming and surfing spots, including Malibu Creek and the Santa Monica Pier. High levels of fecal bacteria found in storm drain runoff can cause stomach upsets, respiratory infections and skin rashes.

Working to Divert Storm Drain Runoff

At certain locations, the cities of Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach are diverting storm drain water to existing sewage treatment systems. Santa Monica has also begun work on a plant that would treat some storm drain runoff for use in watering parks and other public grasslands.

Similar diversion projects in Santa Monica Bay have been launched by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. The agency will start constructing storm drain diversion systems near King Harbor in Redondo Beach on July 15 and is planning to begin building at least three more such systems around the bay later this year. The projects will be completed between 2000 and 2002.

Also, the city of Los Angeles is considering a storm drain diversion system in Venice.

There the problems are not usually caused by the quality of the water but by the crowds that pack the boardwalk. More than 60 million people flocked to county beaches last year, and on some days it seemed as though most of them congregated in Venice.

Capt. Gary S. Williams of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division, which covers Venice, said he normally assigns 50 to 80 officers to the boardwalk, where crowds often top 100,000.

A Diverse Mixture of Beachgoers

“If you walk down the boardwalk on a Sunday, there are so many people you can’t move,” he said. “This is an area that is open to the public. It’s not like Disneyland, where you have control over who goes in and who goes out.”

He said the big crowds attracted to Venice provide “as diverse a mixture of people as any you would find in the world.”

The large gatherings also hold the potential for danger, such as the time in February when the police sent officers in riot gear to break up a hip-hop concert at Venice Beach.

While the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said the officers overreacted, police defended the action, saying the concert-goers threw rocks and bottles at officers as they tried to control the crowd, which was estimated to number more than 1,000.

Williams said he is working more closely with city and county agencies that grant concert permits to prevent a recurrence. Organizers of public events may have to assure officials that they can provide adequate private security to handle large crowds before being issued a permit, he said.

Another challenge this summer in Venice, Williams said, will be enforcing a law meant to settle disputes between businesspeople who rent shops along the boardwalk and street vendors and artists who often sell similar merchandise.

Previously, he said, vendors were prohibited from selling goods, but they could accept donations.

“That turned out to be nothing but a scam,” Williams said. “We had thousands of people selling things, saying they were accepting donations,” when in fact they were charging flat prices.

Thus the store owners who were paying rent were at a disadvantage to those who set up tables and often sold the same, say, sunglasses.

“The boardwalk was becoming nothing more than a big swap meet, instead of the uniqueness of Venice as a place for artists and entertainers,” Williams said.

Issues of Commerce on the Boardwalk

Under the new ordinance, street vendors may sell their original works but are not allowed to sell merchandise readily available in nearby shops. Williams acknowledged that that still leaves open the question of what is art and what is commercial merchandise.

“We don’t want to get involved in that stuff,” he said. “We have other priorities, like public safety--not determining who should or shouldn’t sell what at the beach.”

The warm summer weather means another intractable problem at the beach: parking.

It’s pricey and hard to find on a Sunday in Venice, but not as difficult for those who head farther up the coast, said Phil Patton, who oversees parking at the beach for Los Angeles County. The cost of parking at a county-contracted lot ranges from $2 (Mother’s Beach in Marina del Rey before 9 a.m. on weekdays) to $9.50 (the Venice Pier on weekends).

Patton advises people to follow a simple rule. If you are driving to Venice Beach and hope to park, get there before 11 a.m.

Those who head north may find that one of the most beautiful beaches--Nicholas Canyon, just beyond Zuma Beach in Malibu--is also one of the easiest places to park, he said.

“It is about a mile before the Ventura County line, and some people don’t know it’s there,” Patton said.

But such places are rapidly being discovered by the public. Zuma has become one of the more popular beaches, especially for summer day campers.

Los Angeles County lifeguards, who rescued 13,717 people last year, say Zuma was second only to Venice in the number of lifesaving emergencies.

Records show that there were no drownings last year at beaches patrolled by county lifeguards, but this year there have already been two.

It was only this week that the weather began to resemble summer. Until now, the bicyclers and Rollerbladers were not jostling for space along the bike paths. The muscle-bound had room to strut their stuff at Muscle Beach. Pickup basketball and volleyball games were there for the taking.

But the palm readers and tattoo parlors and fancy eateries and donation-seeking street performers were all hurting.

“It’s dead,” moaned Johnny Parco, owner of Boardwalk Skates and Bikes in Venice, recently.

Off Zuma Beach, Lifeguard Capt. Steve Moseley was putting a group of new recruits through a rugged training session in the rough waters. The group had shrunk as cadets were dropped because they didn’t fulfill the final requirements.

“Ultimately they may be responsible for someone living or dying,” Moseley said. “We try to simulate the kinds of pressures they are going to have in the field so we can know whether they are ready to handle the responsibility.”

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Where the Water Is (and Isn’t) So Fine

Here’s a look at some of Los Angeles County’s most popular beaches, including information on recreation and parking (weekday and weekend prices shown). Water quality grades are shown for summer and were recently released by Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based environmental group.