Alicia Robinson
The warning system that tells beach users when water is contaminated
is inherently flawed, potentially leaving swimmers and surfers at
risk, according to one of three new studies of Orange County water
quality co-written by a professor at UC Irvine.
The critique of the beach posting system was one of several
findings in the studies, which are expected to be published online
this week by Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the
American Chemical Society.
Also in the studies, the finding that the Santa Ana River and
Talbert Marsh are the biggest sources of certain contaminants in
waters off Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, not only during the
wet season, but also in dry weather.
"I don't think we're surprised by the results," Huntington Beach
City Councilwoman Connie Boardman said. "We have been taking action
since 1999 when we had the beach closures to try to resolve the parts
of it that we have control over."
UC Irvine environmental engineering professor Stanley Grant, one
of the studies' authors, said the three papers compiled information
that's been collected since before the rash of beach closures that
kept people in Huntington Beach dry in the summer of 1999. The
studies mainly looked at levels for total coliform, bacteria that can
indicate the presence of sewage.
"There's been a lot of data collected over the last five years,
and so one of our goals was to go back retrospectively to see if it
could tell a bigger story," Grant said.
One paper concludes that the state's beach water quality warning
system has serious problems, partly because of the lag time between
when water samples are taken and tested and when a beach posting or
closure notice goes up, Grant said.
"A lot of people, I think, have been suspecting that for a long
time but what's different here is we've put numbers on it to actually
show how bad it is," he said.
Beach postings, which warn people that contaminant levels in the
water exceed state standards, are sometimes not there when they
should be or are posted when the water meets standards. In Huntington
Beach, for instance, the beach posting error rate approaches 41%,
Grant said.
"The diabolical aspect of this reporting system is that when you
need it the most, it fails you," he said.
The studies also found that systems to trap and treat urban runoff
are largely ineffective because most pollutants -- about 99% -- enter
coastal waters during a few heavy winter storms. When water flows are
