Pollution still streaming into water

Alicia Robinson

Orange County’s streams are polluted by some easily traceable

sources, such as dairy farms, and much of that has been stopped or

reduced recently. But harder-to-trace pollutants, such as animal

waste and runoff from washing cars, are still spoiling some

waterways, a new report shows.

Two-and a-half years of research and the work of more than 200

volunteers went into a report released this week by Newport

Beach-based, water-quality watchdog Orange County CoastKeeper.

The study collected data on streams in three counties including

San Diego Creek and the Santa Ana River. Results show that pollution

is coming largely from hard-to-trace, or “non-point,” sources, Orange

County CoastKeeper project manager Ray Hiemstra said.

“The most important finding, as far as I’m concerned, is that

these problems are still there despite a lot of the work that’s been

done on non-point sources,” he said. “Everybody’s going to have to

pitch in to lower the pollution in these creeks because the big

problems have been found and corrected in most instances.”

Funded by the California Environmental Protection Agency, the 2

1/2 -year study used volunteers, trained by CoastKeeper, to take

water samples once or twice a month and test them for various kinds

of pollution and bacteria. The volunteers also checked twice a year

on the bugs and other aquatic life, which can indicate the health and

content of water bodies.

Testing was performed at 27 sites in three counties. Volunteers

checked for bacteria, dissolved oxygen, ammonia and nutrients.

The data confirmed that the Santa Ana River and San Diego Creek

have poor water quality with high levels of bacteria and dissolved

minerals, Hiemstra said. That’s been shown by other studies, but the

overall project is still valuable for various reasons, he said.

Fixing the problems in San Diego Creek will likely cost hundreds

of millions of dollars, so there’s no such thing as too much data,

Hiemstra said. And while the Santa Ana River has been greatly tested,

the monitoring project also included creeks that haven’t been studied

before and creeks that are listed by the state Environmental

Protection Agency as impaired but may no longer have the problems

that got them on the list.

“This program with the volunteer monitors is doing the monitoring

that the state would like to do [but] for about half the price,” he

said.

To clean up their creeks and coastline, cities and water agencies

are trying a variety of programs and testing new technologies, and

they’re attacking pollution sources when they can find them, said Bob

Ghirelli, director of technical services for the Orange County

Sanitation District.

“I think we understand now that the non-point-source pollution is

probably the largest contributor of pollution to our coastal streams,

rivers and the shoreline,” he said. “What’s really left is the urban

runoff, non-point-source pollution that needs to be dealt with.”

Sanitation district officials have been discussing putting forward

a ballot issue to charge residents a yearly fee that would pay for

cleaning up runoff. Voters in the city of Los Angeles just approved a

$500 million bond measure to pay for runoff improvements.

“It takes money to pay for all these programs, and one of the big

issues is how do you continue to pay for all these programs,”

Ghirelli said.

Orange County supervisors organized a steering committee of water

officials to address water quality issues, and the group plans to

pursue a possible runoff clean-up fee, he said. In earlier

discussion, the fee was expected to range from $25 to $50 a year per

household.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

[email protected].