Grant Awarded to Clean Up Tainted Beaches

After watching a former coastal hot spot suffer through more than two years of poor marks for high levels of bacteria, county officials finally have reason to cheer.

The state Water Resources Control Board recently approved a $1.5-million grant requested by Ventura County officials to find a solution to the water pollution at Kiddie and Hobie beaches at Channel Islands Harbor.

The grant proposal includes two phases. The first calls for a study of the causes and solutions to the high bacteria levels. Poor water circulation and feces from birds and feral cats are among the suspected culprits. The second phase will cover cleanup measures.

“We are ready to go,” said Lyn Krieger, director of the Harbor Department. “The first thing we have to do is a complete water circulation study. We need to know if the circulation of the water will make a difference and if it will, then what can be done about it.”

An engineering firm has been selected to conduct the tests, she said, but no other steps can be taken until the funds become available.

Christy Madden, county community development manager, said the first installment of $705,000 is expected during the next eight weeks.

After that, invoices can be submitted for both future measures and measures the county has already implemented, such as placing metal poles adorned with hanging Mylar strips along the shoreline to shoo birds from the beach.

“The poles are kind of acting like a scarecrow and keeping the birds away,” county Supervisor John K. Flynn said. “I’m just pleased we got this grant because the money will go a long way in cleaning up the water.”

The two beaches at the south end of Channel Islands Harbor, where Victoria Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard meet, gained notoriety the past two summers when they were labeled “beach bummers” by Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based water quality group. The distinction is given to beaches that consistently fail to meet state standards for bacteria levels.

Madden said the county goes beyond mandatory testing at those two beaches.

“The truth of the matter is that the beach is so poorly ranked that we test it a lot more than the others,” Madden said. “We know that it is very isolated with almost no circulation, so we do extra testing. Now that the grant has been approved, we are going to do our best to work out a long-term solution for keeping it clean.”

Lee Quaintance, an Oxnard resident and member of the watchdog Beacon Foundation, agrees that the grant will ultimately mean a cleaner beach but remains concerned about the short term.

“This is a good-news, bad-news sort of thing,” Quaintance said. “It’s good to get the grant; it offers a long-term solution to what we’ve hoped for. But the bad news is that by the time all of the fundamental work has been done, it will still be a couple of years before it’s safe to go to those beaches.”

Liz Kanter, a water board spokeswoman, said there is no time frame set for receiving the second and final installments of the grant.

“Once phase one is completed by Ventura County, then the funds will be released for phase two,” Kanter said. “But as far as the water board is concerned, the county has been allocated a $1.5-million grant. From what we’ve seen it looks like they are on the right track and very committed to clean beaches.”