Surf City Hopes Filters Put a Stop to Beach Debris

In Surf City, where clean beaches mean everything, officials are going after the garbage.

On Monday the Huntington Beach City Council is expected to approve a plan to dramatically reduce the amount of debris, oil and sediment that empties from storm drains at the southern part of the city.

Eight filters will be installed in September to catch debris from 12 drains that feed onto the beach and one in the Bolsa Chica wetlands, said Geraldine Lucas, an environmental engineer in the Public Works Department who is overseeing the project.

Once the filters are installed, floating debris like cigarette butts and paper cups, and about 80% of suspended solids like clay and silt will be captured, she said.

The trash that now gets past the catch basins ends up on the beach and is removed by hand by city workers. In heavy rains, that debris is carried into the ocean.

“This is the best short-term improvement we could do to improve the water quality in Huntington Beach,” said City Administrator Ray Silver.

Huntington Beach has been struggling with a stain on its Surf City image ever since high bacteria counts forced health officials to close miles of the beach during the height of the 1999 tourist season. A study commissioned by the Orange County Sanitation District found no substantial evidence that an offshore sewage plume caused the pollution, and its cause remains a mystery.

However, said Lucas, the storm-drain runoff problem can be fixed.

“People washing their cars, overwatering their lawns, all that water goes directly onto the sand,” she said. “These units will actually remove all the trash, debris and oil.”

Don Schulz, who heads the blue-water task force for the Huntington/Seal Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, said it’s unclear whether the filters will reduce bacteria.

But he added: “I think any step we make toward reducing debris washed up on the beach is a good idea.”

When storm-drain water flows into the filter, the water circulates and a screen collects the garbage.

The $646,000 installation is being funded through a $4-million water-quality grant that the city received through Proposition 13 water-bond funds approved by California voters in 2000. The money also will be used to develop a citywide water-quality management plan to better track the levels and contents of water discharges and identify problems, Silver said.