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Santa Barbara’s east beach water contamination mystery continues

Posted by: Maven on July 2, 2009 at 6:51 am

From the Santa Barbara Independent:

A  mystery is unfolding in the sand along Santa Barbara’s East Beach, and chances are the tourism board doesn’t want you to know about it.

To the casual observer, the two occasionally commingled lagoons sitting high in the sand east of Stearns Wharf are as much a part of downtown’s waterfront landscape as the dolphin fountain. The two bodies of water — Mission Lagoon nearest the wharf and the so-called Laguna Lagoon farther east — are normal and intended near-final resting places for storm runoff and natural watershed flow before it ultimately makes its way into the Pacific ocean. They have also been the subject of longstanding speculation by city officials and water quality watchdogs for their possible connection to years’ worth of safety warnings and less-than-stellar dry-weather water quality reports for the beach that borders them.

Now, thanks to a recently released study on the Laguna watershed — an approximately 630-acre area mostly comprising eastern downtown Santa Barbara — that murky connection is a little bit clearer. According to the report, which was compiled by UCSB and the Santa Barbara-based geology firm Geosyntec Consultants and which was presented at the city’s Creeks Advisory Committee late last month, there is “significant input of human fecal waste” into some of the storm drains and channel that feed the Laguna Lagoon. But the origin and volume of this waste remains unknown. “That is the million-dollar question,” said Cameron Benson, Santa Barbara’s creeks division manager. “If we knew the source right now, we would stop it and it would be done, but unfortunately, it isn’t that easy.”

Read more from the Santa Barbara Independent by clicking here.

July 2, 2009 · Filed Under Southern California

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