Water Quality Dips at Temescal

City’s Low-Flow Diversion Blamed

Water quality along the two-mile stretch of Will Rogers State Beach was one of Heal the Bay’s success stories in this year’s annual Beach Report Card. After 17 years of consistently high levels of harmful bacteria, tested areas of the beach finally showed water levels considered safe enough to swim in without contracting eye, ear and stomach infections. But a dip in water quality at Temescal Canyon during August and early September showed a return of those risks. ‘It is a dramatic drop there,’ said Mike Grimmer, a data analyst for Heal the Bay. ‘It’s not the end of the world there. But it did throw an alarm bell here because it has been a very clean beach.’ After a string of passing–and even A+ grades–beginning this spring, tests at the storm drain at Temescal fell to D’s and F’s. (Heal the Bay assigns grades on an A through F scale that correspond to the prevalence of harmful bacteria.) But despite several weeks of test results showing above-standard levels of Enterococcus bacteria from the county’s Environmental Health Department, sanitation officials from the city’s Department of Public Works did not investigate the cause of the drop until Monday, following requests made by the Palisadian-Post and Heal the Bay. City officials said they attribute the drop to a ‘large summer buildup of trash and sediment’ that has slowed a recently ‘upgraded’ Low-Flow diversion. As a result, urban runoff that should have been completely diverted from storm drains to the city’s sanitation system escaped the diversion and emptied onto the beach, said Wing Tam, assistant division manager of the Bureau of Sanitation’s Watershed Protection Division, which manages the city-owned storm drains. Tam said he was ‘unaware that was an issue at this diversion’ until his division received a call from Heal the Bay on September 13. He said the flow of runoff at Temescal has stopped. Heal the Bay’s Grimmer acknowledged that water quality has returned to healthier levels. But, to him, the city’s slow response to clearing the diversion raises serious questions. ‘I would think that in a perfect world when the [city] spent $800,000 on a diversion like that one, they would have a system in place to regularly check it,’ Grimmer said. ‘But fortunately, we have concerned citizens who monitor these things and call us up asking about what happened to their favorite beaches.’ The recent spike in bacteria there has affected local beachgoers like Donna Chapin. ‘I’m a huge beachgoer,’ she says, ‘so I was happy that for a long time we could swim merrily at Temescal. But then I checked Heal the Bay’s [online] report and saw F’s.’ Chapin stopped swimming at Temescal, but other swimmers didn’t get the news. As late as last Friday, children played in wet sand at the outfall of the still-flowing storm drain. Bacteria levels at the city’s Santa Ynez storm drain at Sunset Boulevard also exceeded healthy levels in late August. Before then, tests had been showing healthy levels–a vast improvement for a site that has regularly been considered among the most polluted statewide. Yet despite troubles at Temescal and Santa Ynez, water quality stayed high this summer at several other Palisades beaches. Heal the Bay ascribes the improved test results to better city and county runoff diversions, tougher summer beach water-quality regulations and a region-wide drought. Less rain means that fewer pollutants are pushed through storm drains. One beneficiary of these improvements has been water at Santa Monica Canyon, another site with a long history of pollution. Tests at Chautauqua’s storm drain showed A’s throughout the summer. The city plans to continue upgrading the diversion at Temescal. Tam of the Bureau of Sanitation says the planned improvements will increase the diversion’s capacity for runoff, helping to avoid repeats of the recent error at Temescal. —– To contact Staff Writer Max Taves, e-mail reporter@palipost.com or call (310) 454-1321 ext. 28.