A Clear Water Revival

With beach closures and high bacteria counts threatening Orange County’s coastal appeal, local officials and activists are increasingly looking inland for solutions, taking a holistic approach to the problem of ocean pollution.

Solutions range from rebuilding antiquated storm water systems to public education to creative planning. All target the myriad sources of contamination on land that have caused an increasing number of beach closures.

“The ocean starts at your doorstep--regardless of where you live,” said county Supervisor Tom Wilson.

Waste, chemicals, fertilizer and other pollutants are carried from every home in Orange County and far beyond to storm drains, channels, creeks or rivers that empty into the Pacific Ocean.

Five major waterways and several smaller ones that end in Orange County carry runoff from thousands of square miles and millions of people. A steady flow of urban runoff, sewage and other pollutants into such waterways is threatening the county’s picturesque beaches and crystal waters.

Heavy rainfall, such as Sunday’s downpour, can flush pollutants and sediment downstream with such force that brown plumes reaching miles out to sea are created. Recent storms have elevated bacteria counts at the mouths of the Santa Ana and San Gabriel rivers and San Juan and San Diego creeks, according to the county health officials.

Past solutions have revolved around what environmentalists call Band-Aid fixes, such as diverting storm-drain flows to sewer systems during the summer.

While such temporary solutions have their place, activists and officials say the only true answer to save the coast is a fundamental societal shift--from persuading homeowners to stop over-watering their lawns to configuring new developments so that runoff is filtered and directed into ponds, rather than sent untreated into the ocean.

“We’re conditioned as a society to look for quick answers,” said Christopher J. Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, based in San Clemente. But the solution to urban runoff “isn’t fast. It isn’t easy. It’s about changing our thinking about how we steward the ocean and the land,” he said.

Multifaceted Approach

Bacteria levels are already dangerously high where most waterways hit the beach, resulting in ocean water being off-limits for days, weeks or sometimes months at a time. Many creek mouths have total coliform levels that exceed health standards as much as 95% of the time.

To deal with this growing problem, officials are touting a multifaceted watershed management approach that includes increasing public education, changing how runoff is handled in built-out areas, improving development design concepts, enacting higher standards and strictly enforcing pollution laws.

This movement comes at a pivotal time.

In the coming decades, as the population booms and the dwindling undeveloped land is paved over, runoff is expected to become an increasing environmental, economic and health problem. The county’s population is expected to grow from 2.8 million to 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Center for Demographic Research at Cal State Fullerton.

All these people will be accompanied by housing, streets and other infrastructure. Natural soils and vegetation that now filter runoff, absorb it and slow its travel will be paved over. Concrete, asphalt and other hard surfaces act as a freeway for water to quickly reach the ocean. Along the way, every particle of copper shed by car brakes, every bit of animal waste left on sidewalks and every drop of pesticide sprayed in backyard gardens is picked up.

Adding to this brew are the regular unauthorized discharges into the county’s creeks. In 1999, a total of 276 spills sent 5.7 million gallons of raw or partially treated sewage into area waterways.

By the time many creeks and rivers reach the ocean, they are a stew of sewage, heavy metals, poisons, animal waste and other pollutants.

Activists such as William H. Roley Jr., director of the Laguna Beach-based PermaCulture Institute of Southern California, say now is the time to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated.

Development ought to be planned “as if nature mattered,” he said. “It takes a conscious effort. We need to reduce impervious surfaces and invite nature back into our developments.”

Roley has taught at Cal Poly Pomona and at universities in Brazil. He is among the experts speaking at a series of county-sponsored workshops for local officials on ways to minimize runoff. A public workshop will be conducted in May, said Michael Wellborn, a county senior planner.

Roley emphasizes that simple design changes, such as narrowing roads, shortening driveways, creating pocket parks and building swales instead of gutters, can allow an area to naturally treat its urban runoff.

Storm water needs to be viewed as an asset rather than a liability, he said. Instead of directing water away from developments as quickly as possible, it can be harnessed and reused.

When water is recycled within a development, “you can produce a flower, a scent, a habitat area, an edible product, a salable product, a usable product,” he said, citing a handful of examples, including a housing development in Davis that uses storm water to irrigate an orchard.

Some of Roley’s examples are unique. One solution designed by architect Hundert Wasser that has been tried in Austria involves planting trees on every other floor of a multistory building. The trees, with branches emerging from windows, are fed by storm drain runoff from the roof. Eventually, activists envision nutrient-rich compost from the tenant’s toilets on the floor above nourishing the trees.

Local officials are skeptical that so radical a solution is practical here. However, they accept the underlying logic of dealing with runoff locally--rather than allowing it to flow unfettered to major bodies of water--as the key to ensuring future developments do not exacerbate pollution problems.

Wetlands Planned

State and county officials praised the Marblehead, Talega, Ladera Ranch and Newport Coast developments for including runoff control measures.

At the 4,000-acre Ladera Ranch, developer Rancho Mission Viejo Co. put in two large wetlands--totaling about 18 acres--that will pond, detain and filter runoff, said Vice President Richard Broming. Additionally, a nearly 3-mile wetland “riverine” that leads runoff to one of the ponds runs through the community. This system will treat dry runoff and the first-flush storm flows from the 8,100-home development in South County, he said.

Although officials are pleased by these voluntary efforts, regional water board members are considering stricter requirements for developers similar to measures in Los Angeles County. In January, the Los Angeles regional water board required large new developments to capture or treat runoff from the first three-quarters of an inch of rainfall.

Wayne Baglin, chairman of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, said his agency has scheduled a public workshop Wednesday in Temecula to consider a similar requirement.

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has jurisdiction over the remainder of Orange County, is studying whether such limits are necessary in its region, said Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer.

A larger problem is retrofitting existing development. “It takes a lot of money,” Wellborn said.

There are steps that cities and the county can take, such as installing catch basins in storm drains and increasing street sweeping. Prompted by last summer’s two-month Huntington Beach shoreline closure, Orange County and five coastal cities that depend heavily on tourism dollars recently sought $1.2 million from various sources to pay for as many as 30 storm drain and pump station diversions from Huntington Beach to San Clemente.

Elsewhere other concepts are being introduced. For example, on the East Coast, some parking lot operators have replaced medians with gravel and mulch filters.

“One thing is not going to fix all these problems,” Wellborn said. “We need to come up with a range of designs and see what is going to fit for what communities.”

Although costly, Berchtold said, retrofitting can head off enforcement actions and fines from regional water boards.

In the past, public education was heralded as the cure for urban runoff. Although no longer seen as a magic bullet to eliminate coastal pollution, publicity campaigns remain an important component.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Washing Out to Sea

Orange County’s 13 watershet areas (indicated by colored areas) pour into five major waterways and many smaller ones that drain into the Pacific Ocean. Bacteria levels are often high where these waterways,fouled by urban runoff and sewage spills, empty int the ocean.

San Gabriel River

The 29-mile San Gabriel River flows from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific Ocean between Long Beach and Seal Beach. The river drains about 635 square miles of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties home to about 2.5 million people.

The Santa Ana River:

The San Ana River begins more than 100 miles away in the San Bernardino Mountains. It receives runoff from cities and dairies before it empties into the Pacific Ocean in Huntington Beach. Its watershed includes more than 2,650 square miles in San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties and more than 4.5 million people.

Source: Orange County Health Care Agency

WASTE DISCHARGES

* These discharges are primarily spills of raw sewage and reclaimed water, but also include a wide variety of substances, including foam, grease and squid juice.

1999 WASTE DISCHARGE CAUSES:

14 Miscellaneous

14 Pump station failure

38 Pipeline break

210 Pipeline blockage

BEACH CLOSURES:

* These numbers represent several multiple-day closures at beaches throughout Orange County.

Number of O.C. beach closure days.

1999 BEACH CLOSURE CAUSES

1 Treatment plant

2 Pipeline breaks

3 Miscellaneous

5 Pump station failure

11 Pipeline blockage

*

What’s in the Water

Polluted ocean water can contain pathogens--disease-causing bacteria, viruses and protozoa. Pathogens that may be found in ocean waters contaminated with sewage or runoff include:

Pathogenic Agent: Disease

BACTERIA

E. coli: Gastroenteritis

Salmonella typhi: Typhoid fever

Other salmonella species: Various enteric fevers (often called paratyphoid), gastroenteritis, septicemia (generalized infections--organisms, multiply in the bloodstream)

Shigella dysenteriae and other species: Bacterial dysentery

Vibrio cholera: Cholera

*

PROTOZOA

(Intestinal Parasites)

Cryptosporidium: Diarrhea - Cryptosporidiosis

Giardia lamblia: Diarrhea - Giardiasis

*

VIRUSES

Rotavirus: Diarrhea - Gastroenteritis

Norwalkvirus: Gastroenteritis

Coxsackievirus (some strains): Various, including severe respiratory disease, fevers, rashes, paralysis, aseptic meningitis myocarditis

Adenovirus: Respiratory and gastrointestinal infections

Echovirus: Various, similar to coxsackievirus, (evidence is not definite except in experimental animals)

Poliovirus: Poliomyelitis

Hepatitis A: Infectious hepatitis (liver malfunction), also may affect kidneys and spleen

Source: Orange County Health Care Agency