Clean Beaches Come at a Price

For a moment, it appeared that the summer of 2001 for Huntington Beach was taking shape as a trailer for a soon-to-be released science fiction flick. Along with the advisories of power blackouts over the summer that everyone in California has been getting, Huntington Beach got a warning that it might not be possible for beach-goers to go near the water.

It happened recently when an Orange County’s health officer got people’s attention by raising anew the prospect of beach closings this summer because of water pollution. Health officials since have been back-peddling, saying that the situation has not been assessed as so dire.

Even so, water quality is going to be a very big issue this summer. The city has learned from past experience that it’s not so easy to dismiss the threat of polluted beaches. In 1999, the closings that afflicted isolated spots on the Orange County coastline were not simply a temporary occurrence for Huntington Beach. They became a regular sight. More than four miles of ocean ended up being declared off-limits because of contamination that wouldn’t go away.

At the time, the city tried to put the best face on it by pointing out that beaches were open even if the water was not suitable for swimming. That distinction was a tough one for beachgoers to accept. Not being able to go near the water has a way of putting a damper on a day at the beach.

There may be some things like clean ocean air that are as important to people in Huntington Beach as the quality of the ocean water, but there can’t be many. Any city with the moniker of “Surf City” clearly has a lot at stake in maintaining clean beaches and oceans.

Understandably, people are hoping that beach closures will not happen again. Orange County officials are wisely not counting on hope.

The Orange County Sanitation District is about to spend some $4.1 million in a project to determine whether its treated sewage is the cause. Whatever scare might have been raised by the threat of another bad summer, there is a commitment. It arises from a recognition of just how much is at stake.

To hear the district say that it wants to spend millions to find out if it is the source of the problem, and then to pledge to fix it, is a refreshing assumption of responsibility by a public agency. Too often we hear about guilty parties in pollution cases failing to act even after they have been identified as the culprits.

The agency is off to a good start by not challenging whether it is a contributor to the problem but by adopting the attitude that it wants to identify to what degree.

Would that others would join in enthusiastically. The AES Corp. power plant operation nearby has been a willing participant in discussions to identify how it too might be contributing party, and it has pledged $350.000. It ought to ante up a good share of funds as well to get to the bottom of the problem. If it doesn’t, Orange County taxpayers will have to foot the bill.

The city and others already have gone to great lengths to try and sort out the source of the problem. Leaking sewer lines first were suspected as the cause of the shoreline problems, but later ruled out. After that, urban runoff flowing from Talbert Marsh and the Santa Ana River came under suspicion.

Then last fall, UC Irvine scientists theorized that treated sewage from the sanitation district that is piped miles offshore was being pulled back by tidal forces and the power plant’s cooling system.

So now researchers are going to test the theory during surveys between now and September. They will sample ocean water and sediment, measure currents and take other dye studies to track runoff. This costly effort comes with help from the National Water Research Institute, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Southern California.

Unfortunately, while the research indicates a strong commitment to save the local coast, solutions are bound to be costly. Many coastal areas have aging infrastructure which means that fixing such problems can be expensive.

It would be a shame if in the short term the waterfront does become off limits. But for now, it is laudable that health and sanitation officials are putting public safety first.