This is just one post in the Other Oceans & Beaches Stories Category

Malibu violating beach bacteria limits, but city officials are working to counter pollution

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 29, 2008 at 6:12 am

From the Malibu Times:

Heal the Bay’s 18th annual Report Card for California Beaches had alarming, bad and good news for Malibu. The report, covering water quality from April 1 of last year to March 31 of this year, was released last week on Wednesday during a press conference at the Santa Monica Pier.

In alarming news, the city is one of 20 municipalities along with the county to receive a Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, or RWQCB, notice threatening tens of thousands of dollars in daily fines.

In bad news, Puerco Beach landed on Heal the Bay’s list of California’s 10 most polluted beaches for the third year in a row.

The good news is that Southern California’s historic drought last year resulted in stretches of very good to excellent summer water quality in a stretch of beach from Leo Carrillo to Topanga, with the exception of the Marie Canyon drain at Puerco Beach.

The city of Malibu has been working hard to clean things up:

The city is working with various parties to address beach water quality, interviews with officials revealed. “We’ve been pretty proactive,” Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said last Thursday. “We’ve committed $50 million, almost twice the size of our budget, toward various pollution cleanup projects.”

She ticked off action such as the city’s 2006 purchase of Legacy Park and the proposal for it to be part of the city’s storm water treatment program, the 2007 completion of the Civic Center storm water treatment plant, the proposal for a wastewater treatment plant in the Civic Center area and development of storm water treatment at Paradise Cove.

Last year’s fires in Malibu clogged pumps at the county’s treatment facility on Malibu Road, accounting for the poor showing at Puerco Beach, Heal the Bay President Mark Gold said. Once those pumps are replaced next month, “you should see an A grade at that beach every day,” said Mark Pestrella, county assistant deputy director of public works, who is lending technical support for the design of Legacy Park.

Read the full text of this story from the Malibu Times by clicking here.

May 29, 2008 · Filed Under Other Oceans & Beaches Stories