Santa Monica Beaches Get Mixed Grades

By Jorge Casuso

October 25 – A decaying drain that carries runoff from the thriving Downtown business district resulted in an F grade for the beach around the pier, while new diversion systems contributed to near-perfect grades for the city’s other beaches, according to an End of Summer report card issued by Heal the Bay Tuesday.

“Santa Monica Beach is one of the five most popular beaches (in the state) and also one of the top five that is most polluted,” said Dr. Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay. “The water quality is extremely poor.”

The grades were handed out during the dry season, when beach pollution is lower than during the wet winter months, when heavy rains sweep debris from the storm drains into area beaches, City officials said.

The dry season runoff came from residents and businesses who routinely water down paved areas, wash cars and water lawns and gardens, according to City officials.

“It’s just people wasting and using water in the urban environment,” said Craig Perkins, who is in charge of the City’s Environmental and Public Works Department.

A leaky stormdrain line that is decaying and doesn’t reach the surf contributed to high levels of bacterial pollution that made the water around the pier unsafe for swimming, according to Perkins. The polluted water ponds underneath the pier.

“It doesn’t make it all the way to the surf,” Perkins said. “It tends to pool.”

The City has started implementing recommendations from Heal the Bay that include pumping the polluted water out of the pond and filling the pond with clean sand. The City also will hire a contractor to thoroughly inspect the stormdrain infrastructure, the runoff diversions and the Santa Monica Reuse Facility (SMRF), which cleans the stormwater.

The contractor will “identify problems and solutions to the water quality problems,” Heal the Bay officials said.

While the area around the pier remains polluted, other city beaches are reaping the rewards of new diversion systems that divert the flow of stormwater into the sewer system instead of the ocean.

A $3 million diversion system between Wilshire Boulevard and Montana Avenue – which was bankrolled with more than $1 million from the City and the balance from grants – resulted in an A for the beach at Wilshire and a B at Montana.

The beach at Pico Boulevard also got a top grade, thanks to a diversion system that siphons the polluted water from the Pico-Cantor storm drain to the SMRF facility, which is located near the pier.

“It’s showing you these systems work,” Gold said.

The beaches in Ocean Park at Strand Avenue and at Ashland Avenue also got As.

Cleaning up the water around the pier will require money the City doesn’t have, said Council member Richard Bloom.

“We’ve got a problem with stormwater runoff,” Bloom said. “We’ve got to fix it, but we need the money.”

“The fact of the matter is we now have used all our public funds,” said Perkins. “We don’t have any money to do anything major.”

With less federal funding in recent years, the City has had to rely on State and local funding, which has already been used on Santa Monica’s new diversion systems.

“There is much less federal funds now than in the past,” Perkins said. “It really has dried up at the federal level quite significantly.”

To pay for the much needed upgrades to the stormdrain line under the pier, City officials and environmentalists are asking voters to approve Proposition V on the November 7 ballot. The measure would raise $40 million to help clean up Santa Monica beaches.

If the measure passes, homeowners would pay $7 a month and renters $2.

“It’s a moral imperative,” Bloom said.

Heal the bay’s report card – which grades more than 450 monitoring locations from Humboldt County to San Diego County – found that, once again, Los Angeles has the worst beach quality grades in the state.

The worst water quality in Los Angeles County this summer was measured in Long Beach, and Avalon beaches continued to log in poor grades, while Santa Monica Bay beaches registered a slight improvement.

“Overall, Santa Monica Bay beaches fared slightly better than last summer with 49 (75 percent) of 65 monitoring locations received A or B grades,” according to Heal the bay’s report.