Children’s Beaches Among State’s Dirtiest, Report Says

They’re called Mother’s Beach. Or Kiddie Beach. Or Baby Beach. Protected by breakwaters from surf and swift currents, their tranquil waters beckon on a hot summer day.

But with the Memorial Day weekend bringing the official opening of beach season, here’s a warning: These beaches look safe, but many are among the most polluted in the state.

“They are like bathtubs. The bacteria just stews,” said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay, which Wednesday issued its annual report card for Southern California’s beaches.

Overall, the quality of ocean water in the region has improved somewhat, but many beaches in urban areas still receive an F grade for violating health standards.

The main culprit is runoff: Water quality plummets when rains cause sewage spills and wash a stew of motor oil, animal feces, pesticides and trash into storm drains and out to sea.

Much of that disperses within a few days in the open ocean. But in the waters lapping up on protected beaches in the harbors of Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Ventura and Marina del Rey, this nasty brew tends to hang around.

Several of these places, including Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro Bay, Kiddie Beach at Channel Island Harbor in Oxnard and Baby Beach at Dana Point Harbor, made this year’s worst-of-the-worst list, or “Beach Bummer” locations.

“It only takes one exposure to polluted waters to get sick,” said Dr. Aliza A. Lifshitz, author of the bilingual guidebook “Healthy Mother, Healthy Baby.”

She noted that young children and the elderly are more susceptible to illness from waterborne bacteria and viruses. Most often, the symptoms show up a day or two after exposure as respiratory or gastrointestinal infections.

The news dismayed beachgoers Wednesday. Manuel and Antonia Garcia of San Juan Capistrano were at Baby Beach at Dana Point Harbor with their children, ages 3 and 4. Garcia said he sometimes gets in the water with Brenda, the 4-year-old. “But now, I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t want them to go in the water and I won’t either.”

Cleaning up coastal waters is costly, but it can be done, Gold said. He cited a success story this year. A popular stretch of Santa Monica Beach at Ashland Avenue jumped from a D grade last year to an A this year after Los Angeles County officials diverted summertime runoff into the Los Angeles City sewer system for treatment.

Heal the Bay, which began as a self-appointed watchdog of Santa Monica Bay, continues to expand the scope of its report cards.

Next year, it will cover the entire California coast, relying on a consortium of local government officials who are required by state law to sample ankle-deep water at popular beaches with at least one storm drain outfall.

This year, the 11th annual beach report card covers 375 popular beaches stretching from northern Santa Barbara County to the Mexican border. Each location is graded, A to F, for bacterial counts during both wet and dry seasons over the last year.

Overall, 68% of the monitored beaches received a grade of F during wet weather, compared to only 11% during the dry season.

Health officials, keenly aware of the plumes of pollutants carried with runoff into the sea, recommend that beachgoers avoid swimming or surfing in coastal waters during rainstorms and for three days afterward.

They also urge swimmers to avoid the waters within 100 yards of a flowing storm drain. Lighter than saltwater, a flow of contaminated freshwater can pollute coastal waters year-round by lingering on the surface as its slowly spreads out like a fan.

Such pollutants tend to correlate with population. The more urban the area, the more contaminated runoff. The report card showed that Ventura County’s beaches were the cleanest, with 83% receiving A’s during dry weather, followed by Orange County with 65% receiving A’s, San Diego County with 59% and Los Angeles County with 57%.

The report card for the first time compared beaches exposed to the open ocean with those sheltered by harbors or breakwaters. During dry weather, only 3% of open-ocean beaches flunked health standards, compared with 21% of enclosed beaches. Four out of five open-ocean beaches received the cleanest ratings, while only about one-third of enclosed beaches did so.

“These are the beaches we need to focus on and get cleaned up,” Gold said at a news conference before television cameras on Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro Bay. State leaders, he said, are coming to understand the importance of improving California beaches frequented by 100 million people each year.

Gov. Gray Davis initially proposed $100 million in next year’s budget to clean up beaches. He recently scaled back the cleanup program to $10 million because of the drain on the state budget caused by the energy crisis.

State lawmakers are pushing a compromise: $45 million for next year. Some of the money would focus on cleaning up sheltered beaches, such as Cabrillo Beach, by putting pipes or other openings in breakwaters so that fresh seawater could flow into otherwise stagnant areas.

Underwritten by Ford Motor Co., Heal the Bay’s 2000-2001 Beach Report Card is available online at https://www.healthebay.org.

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Times staff writer Stanley Allison contributed to this story.

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Bay Watch

Heal the Bay’s latest annual report card on Los Angeles County beaches covered the period from April 2000 to March 2001.

Bummer Beaches

Of the 375 beaches monitored by Heal the Bay, these 10 recorded the poorest dry-weather water quality last year and have been dubbed Southern California’s “Beach Bummer” locations.

* Arroyo Quemada, north of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County

* Channel Islands Harbor Beach Park, Oxnard, Ventura County

* Surfrider Beach, Malibu, Los Angeles County

* Cabrillo Beach, harborside at San Pedro Bay, Los Angeles County

* Avalon Beach, Santa Catalina Island, Los Angeles County

* Baby Beach, Dana Point Harbor, Orange County

* Doheny Beach, Dana Point, Orange County

* Pacific Beach at Pacific Beach Point, San Diego County

* Visitors Center (projection of Clairemont Drive) at Mission Bay, San Diego County

* Tijuana Slough (Tijuana River outlet), San Diego County