STEVE SMITH -- What’s Up?

Timing really is everything. In what seemed to be notices received only

hours apart, Newport Beach was declared one of the 10 best beaches in the

nation by the Surfrider Foundation. That was followed by the announcement

that certain beaches in Newport are closed due to unhealthy levels of

bacteria.

Then, in a Daily Pilot story published Tuesday, we read that Newport

Beach became only the second city in the country to install the so-called

“smart” parking meter. The description of the meter’s capabilities reads

like something out of a science fiction novel. Among other things, it can

detect when drivers are feeding the meter and then prevent them from

doing so, and it can also detect when a car has just left the space,

enabling it to turn its timer back to zero. It seems as thought these

smart meters do everything except issue a citation on the spot. According

to the story, the meters were installed to “discourage beach-goers from

parking in metered spaces all day while baking on the beach, instead of

spending money at neighborhood businesses.”

It’s too bad the dirty beach story didn’t come out awhile back when the

city was voting on whether to install the meters. Now, they may not have

to worry about people using those spots to park their cars for a day at

the beach. A few days of “swimming prohibited” signs on the beach will

have taken care of the problem for them. Nothing will turn people away

from the beach faster than the inability to take a dip or fear of getting

sick. Either that or a shark sighting.

Until last week, the polluted beach stories were limited to the waters

north and south of Newport. I always got a chuckle reading the maps of

the polluted beaches in the paper. The dirty water always seemed to come

down from Huntington Beach or up from Aliso and stop magically at the end

of Laguna Beach or at the Santa Ana River outlet that divides Newport and

Huntington. Huntington Beach had many problems last year that caused

popular areas to close several times during the summer.

There, the closures were first put in terms of the monetary loss due to a

drop in tourism. The human factor, the notion that visitors could get

sick from swimming seemed to be a secondary reason for the closures. That

mentality worked its way into the reopenings as well. There was a closure

just before the Independence Day holiday that many have guessed was

shelved, or, in this case, beached, because of the effect it would have

on tourism.

Tourism is a big deal in Newport Beach. Open up your Los Angeles Times

from Thursday and you’ll see Newport Beach on the cover of the Calendar

section. The story inside tells the reader what to do and see in the

city, based on water activities (There’s a lot of information but not a

word about where to park).

I’m relieved that the Orange County Grand Jury is on the pollution case.

The fact is, everyone in the county has a stake in the health of

Newport’s beaches. And in the same way I would get fined or sanctioned I

throw trash in my neighbor’s yard, so should upstream communities if they

contribute to local pollution. Karen Evarts, a member of the grand jury’s

environmental and transportation committee, was quoted Thursday in the

Pilot as saying, ‘We came to feel that there’s really a need for

multi-jurisdictional effort to come up with solutions.”

Without its beaches, Newport Beach is a good city. With the beaches fully

open and operational, with clean water, it is a fabulous city. The

beaches at Newport are wide, services are plentiful and the weather is

spectacular. Newport has water fun for every age and taste: swimming

beaches, surfing beaches and tide pool beaches. Maintaining healthy

beaches is not only crucial to the local economy, it’s an important part

of our lifestyle. I defy anyone to describe a family outing more

enjoyable than a simple day at the beach.

Clean beaches are everyone’s business. Without local power to enforce

anti-pollution rules and make contributing cities accountable for their

actions, Newport will be fighting a battle it cannot win. Newport Beach

should not have to wage this pollution war alone. Without clean beaches,

tourists won’t come and it won’t matter what kind of parking meters they

install.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. He may be

reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] or our Readers

Hotline at (949) 642-6086.