Beach Closure Is Reminder of 1999 Problems

The longest Orange County beach closure in three years has raised fears of a repeat of the environmental problem that kept Huntington Beach’s shoreline off-limits through most of a summer.

The beach was closed to swimmers and surfers April 9 after county health officials noticed elevated levels of bacteria considered harmful to humans, including coliform and Enterococcus. Initial tests, however, were unable to pinpoint the source of the pollution. Huntington State Beach was closed 1,000 feet in each direction of Magnolia Street.

That has raised the possibility of a repeat of the 1999 closure in which several miles of beach were declared off-limits for two months during the height of the tourist season because of high bacteria levels whose source has never been found.

“We still don’t understand everything that’s going on,” said Monica Mazur, a spokeswoman for the county’s environmental health division, which decides when beaches should be closed. “It’s like an onion. We’re gradually peeling the layers away.”

Early tests, she said, ruled out beach bathrooms as the source of the latest problem. An 84-inch sewer line paralleling the beach appears sound. Tests of the water at various levels from the sand to beyond the surf line, Mazur said, failed to determine a cause.Although tests conducted last weekend indicated that some bacteria levels at the site were beginning to subside, Mazur said, officials will not consider reopening the beach until after further tests May 11.

“We’re just trying to check out everything that could be in the area,” she said, “double-check it and then do some more sampling.”

After the 1999 beach closures, the county built a series of pumps and waterways to divert about 90% of the county’s urban runoff away from the ocean and into the sewer system. Officials believe that effort resulted in a 50% decrease in dangerous bacteria levels.

Last summer, researchers from several institutions spent $5.1 million to test the theory that much of the pollution resulted from a massive plume of partially treated sewage pumped daily 4.2 miles off shore but moved toward the surf zone by ocean tides.

While preliminary results indicate that the tides are not sending sewage back toward the shore, another study found the sewage plume could have contributed to the 1999 beach closures.

Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook thinks the plume is the cause. “We can’t find any other source,” she said.

Lisa Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sanitation District, said she would wait until the final data is in. “We want so badly for this situation to be solved,” she said.