Canyon beach a clear winner
SM BEACH — All areas of the beach in Santa Monica got a failing grade this past winter by an environmental group that tracks water quality in the bay.
Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit group dedicated to cleaning up the bay, released its 15th annual Beach Report Card this week. In Santa Monica, Heal the Bay listed the area off of Montana Avenue as one of the biggest “beach bummers.”
Santa Monica Beach at Montana Avenue plummeted from a 2003-04 summer dry weather grade of “A” to an “F” with bacteria levels in June of 2004 far exceeding the threshold for what’s healthy.
“What that means, basically, is that bacteria densities were through the roof,” said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay.
That area of the beach received a “D” grade for water quality during the dry months, between April and October of 2004, and an “F” between April, 2004, and March, 2005. The city of Santa Monica is currently installing a diversion in the area, which should be completed soon. However, in the past year, stormwater runoff has gone straight into the ocean.
“They haven’t finished the diversion yet and they are having flows during the summer,” Gold said. “Normally, you don’t get any flow there at all.”
While five other areas along Santa Monica’s coast also received “F’s” during the wet months — when stormwater runoff pollution is at its highest — during the dry months, Santa Monica beaches varied in grades between “A” and “B.”
The areas Gold was most impressed with were at the Pico/Kenter storm drain and Santa Monica Canyon areas.
Operated by the city of Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Canyon system is able to divert virtually all of the dry weather flow away from the ocean.
Last year, Santa Monica Canyon’s runoff system went from a “D” grade to a “B” in one year. This year, it received an “A” during the summer months.
“The Santa Monica Canyon diversion seems to be faring quite well, and has improved upon its 2003-04 grade of ‘B’ to score its first full-fledged ‘A’ this year during the summer dry weather time period,” the report says. “When one considers the year-round dry weather grade for Santa Monica Canyon is an ‘F,’ beachgo-ers are definitely benefiting from improved water quality during the summer months with the diversion in place. Other locations with diversions in place also fared well during the summer dry weather time-period like Santa Monica Beach at Ashland Avenue, Santa Monica Beach at Pico/Kenter...”
The Pico/Kenter area had problems last year partly because the elevation in the sand lends itself to ponding easily. City staff over the last year has worked on timing the diversion better when it rains so the flow doesn’t go directly into the ocean. City staff also has improved the system so the debris trapped in the filter was be pumped directly into the city’s recycling treatment facility underneath the pier a few hundred feet away.
“Seeing Pico with an ‘A’ was great,” Gold said.
The report card grades about 350 locations year-round and about 460 locations in dry weather from April to October on an A-F scale, based on the risk of adverse health effects to swimmers and surfers. The grades are based on daily and weekly fecal bacteria pollution levels in the surf zone.
Water samples are analyzed for bacteria that indicate pollution from numerous sources, including fecal waste. The higher the grade a beach receives, the lower the risk of illness to ocean users.
The 2004-05 Annual Beach Report Card shows that most beaches had very good water quality, with 278 of 346, or 80 percent of the locations receiving very good-to-excellent (A and B) grades for the year during dry weather. There were also 30 C’s (9 percent), 11 D’s (3 percent) and 27 F’s (8 percent). California’s overall good-to-excellent dry weather grades were just slightly below the average of 82 percent, with Southern California’s grades even a few more points below the average (78 percent A’s and B’s).
As in past years, there continues to be a great disparity in water quality between dry and wet weather conditions. 2004-05 was one of the worst wet weather years on record. The enormous amount of rain throughout the state resulted in 90 percent of the 346 locations monitored during wet weather receiving fair-to-poor grades. Last year was the most polluted wet weather season on record since the statewide beach monitoring program began in 1999.
Still, Gold believes it’s incumbent upon local, county and state governments to develop policies and appropriately fund them so that water quality is improved even in wet months.
“It’s a matter of how serious the cities and the counties are taking wet weather pollution when they consider their policies,” he said, adding recently approved legislation mandating clean-up efforts is a step in the right direction. “It’s now the law to clean up Santa Monica Bay.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 27, 2005. Read the original PDF.