Seal Beach Daily

In the wake of a county cutback of coastal water testing from Nov. 1 through March 31, Seal Beach city manager David Carmany is investigating the cost of using a private lab to test the waters off Seal Beach for bacterial contamination, he said in an e-mail this morning.

According to Carmany, the Seal Beach Marine Safety staff was notified last week that there would be no testing at Seal Beach for these winter months — a prime surfing season — due to county cost-cutting. The job of coastal water testing has been handled by the Orange Health Care Agency, Orange County Sanitation District and South Orange County Wastewater Authority for 40 years, he said, but the entities are not required by law to test at Seal Beach. [Above: A ride from the Seal Beach Surf contest, Jan. 2009]

This year, the county will still be testing beaches as far north as Bolsa Chica, leaving Sunset Beach and Seal Beach to fend for themselves. In all, testing will be discontinued at 97 locations county-wide. The northernmost OC beaches fall outside a state-madated testing area based on the location of sewage outflow pipes, according county officials.

Carmany wrote to Rick Francis, Orange County Second District Chief of Staff for details. He shared the county reply:

“The weekly ocean water quality monitoring conducted by HCA from April 1 to October 31 is mandated by State statute and the State currently provides funding for this monitoring. The State funded period is for what is considered the highest ocean use months (summer). During the five month period from November 1 to March 31, costs for monitoring were offset by the County General Fund. HCA is implementing necessary program reductions due to a reduction in General Fund, specifically discontinuing sampling at 97 locations from November 1st to March 31st, which includes Seal Beach locations. In the absence of a backfill of the funding reduction, HCA will not be able to sample during the winter months.

From November 1 to March 31, HCA will continue evaluating samples collected by the two regional wastewater authorities and will implement public notifications as necessary. The existing regional wastewater agencies monitoring locations were established as part of the State and Federal ocean outfall permitting process. These sampling locations are located at specific interval distances to the geographical location of each agency’s offshore outfall pipe and is used to determine if the treated wastewater plume may be coming onshore. Currently, Orange County Sanitation District’s most northern surf zone sampling location does not extend past Bolsa Chica State Beach. Therefore, weekly sampling from Sunset Beach to Seal Beach will not occur from November 1 to March 31.”

“I think this cut-back is indicative of a soft collapse of government infrastructure that may portend changes to the way Seal Beach must conduct government business. That is, as other agencies cut back, our city will be forced to step up. We are seeing other examples of this, for example in the criminal justice system.” Carmany wrote to county officials last week.

After weekly tests in June, the county posted bacterial contamination advisory for the waters within 300 feet of the mouth San Gabriel River.