Plan for Cleaner Creek to Be Offered

Hoping to launch a plan to clean creek water that flows to city beaches, City Councilman Wayne J. Baglin will offer a list of suggestions to his colleagues tonight.

The 10 recommendations include adopting a “pathogen detection program” to analyze the water that flows to Main Beach to determine sources of pollution and enlisting volunteers from schools, the community and the government to help in the effort.

“It seems like we keep saying things but not doing anything,” Baglin said, adding that he has been interested in the area’s water quality issues since 1978, when he was a trustee for the Aliso Water Management Agency.

As Baglin envisions it, monitors would test the waters in the Laguna Lakes and then continue collecting samples about every 200 yards along Laguna Canyon Creek. The goal is to pinpoint the sources of pollution in the creek, which eventually flows to Main Beach in the center of town.

In the meantime, Baglin is recommending that the city post signs in English and Spanish at all city storm drain outlets warning that the water could cause illness.

In a memo to his colleagues, Baglin said the city’s most serious water pollution problems involve water flowing from Laguna Canyon Creek to Main Beach and from Aliso Creek to Aliso Beach.

Laguna Beach has had a number of beach closures in recent years, generally as a result of sewage spills. Aliso Beach, which is governed by the county, was closed almost two dozen times in the past decade.

The Army Corps of Engineers is working with the county’s Environmental Management Agency on a regional watershed management study that includes Aliso Creek and San Juan Creek.