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There
are six agencies within San Diego County that provide
monitoring information to Heal the Bay's Beach Report
Card: the City of Oceanside, the City of San Diego,
Encina Wastewater Authority, San Elijo Joint Powers
Authority, the San Onofre Generating Station, and the
County of San Diego Environmental Health Services. A
majority of the 110 monitoring locations covered by
the Beach Report Card are sampled and analyzed by the
City and County of San Diego. Samples are generally
collected at the wave wash (where runoff and ocean water
mix) or 25-yards away from a flowing storm drain, creek
or river.
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Luis River, Oceanside |
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Overall,
dry weather water quality at beaches in San Diego County
was very good between April and October. Of the 102
water quality monitoring locations, 86% received very
good-to-excellent water quality marks (see Table 29
and Table 30). Similar to Los Angeles and Orange County,
San Diego County had stretches of beaches with great
water quality, such as San Onofre State Beach at San
Mateo Creek to La Jolla at Windansea Beach; Pacific
Beach at Crystal Pier to Mission Beach, projection of
Capistrano Place; Ocean Beach at Ocean Pier to Point
Loma Lighthouse; and Coronado at North Beach to Imperial
Beach at the south end. Within Mission and San Diego
Bays, for the third year in a row water quality varied
greatly from beach to beach, making it difficult to
recommend swimming locations. As was noted in previous
Annual Reports, and is true for this report, beaches
located within enclosed bays tend to have reduced tidal
circulation and are more susceptible to long-term pollution
problems compared to open-ocean beaches. Only 15 of
26 (58%) beaches within the bays received very-good-to-excellent
water quality marks, compared to the 70 of 73 (96%)
of open ocean beaches in San Diego County during AB
411 (April through October).
There
were 14 locations in San Diego County that received
fair-to-poor water quality marks during AB 411. Once
again, the beaches in Mission and San Diego Bay accounted
for nearly all of the poor grades, with 11 of 14 locations
receiving no higher than a C. Other problem beaches
continue to be: Pacific Beach at P.B. Point, Ocean Beach
at the San Diego River (Dog Beach) and the Tijuana Slough
Natural Wildlife Reserve at the Tijuana River.
A caveat to the county's water quality monitoring program
is that each year since 1999, the County of San Diego,
Department of Environmental Health has severely reduced
its beach water quality monitoring from the first day
of November to March 31st (the state's requirements
for shoreline water quality monitoring is April 1st
to October 31st). Water quality was collected 68% of
the time (this translates into approximately three and
half months of coverage) at 254 southern California
(Santa Barbara to Orange County) sampling locations
from November through March during dry weather (during
AB 411 this percentage would be close to 100). During
this same time period, there were only 29 monitoring
locations in the County of San Diego to meet this percentage
threshold. This represented a 72% reduction in monitoring
countywide. The principal areas of coverage during the
winter season were around Carlsbad, Coronado, parts
of Imperial Beach, and the Tijuana Slough area. Therefore,
those who frequent popular winter surfing, swimming,
and diving spots around San Onofre, Carlsbad, Encinitas,
Del Mar, portions of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, and Mission
Bay lack timely water quality information at a time
of year when runoff is most likely to be impacting beaches.
This situation will hopefully be remedied in the winter
of 2003, when the County Environmental Health Services
plans to begin a pilot winter water quality monitoring
program, using Environmental Protection Agency's National
Beach Guidance and Performance Criteria for Recreational
Waters grant funds, which are being distributed
by California Department of Health Services. The 13
proposed locations are: Oceanside Beach at San Luis
Rey River, Carlsbad State Beach at Tamarack (Agua Hedionda
Lagoon), South Carlsbad State Beach at Batiquitos Lagoon,
Encinitas at Moonlight Beach (Cottonwood Creek), Cardiff
State Beach at San Elijo Lagoon, Del Mar City Beach
at San Dieguito River, Torrey Pines State Beach at
Los
Peñasquitos Lagoon, La Jolla Shores at El Paseo Grande,
La Jolla Cove, La Jolla at Windansea Beach, Pacific
Beach at Tourmaline, Ocean Beach at San Diego River
(Dog Beach), and Imperial Beach Pier.
Given
that the County of San Diego severely reduces their
monitoring program during the wet season, there were
only 33 locations monitored during wet weather. A majority
of the problem beaches (11 out of 14) were in the extreme
southern portion of the county. Monitoring locations
from Coronado Municipal Beach projection of Avenida
del Sol to Border Field State Park-north of the border
fence, all received C grades or lower.
Please see Table 31 for a brief review of dry weather
water quality trends for San Diego County beaches for
the past three years during AB 411 (April to October).
As Table 31 indicates, this was an average year for
water quality at San Diego County beaches during dry
weather.
Clean
Beach Initiative Summary
Funded with $7.8 million from the CBI program, there
are five projects to reduce bacterial pollution at local
beaches in San Diego County. Two of the proposed projects
are dry-weather diversions (Imperial Beach and Coronado
Beach). In addition to the diversion projects planned
for Mission Bay, the City of San Diego will conduct
a number of source identification studies on various
watersheds that discharge to Mission Bay. The City of
Imperial Beach will try to determine the extent of beach
area affected during different time periods by flows
from the Tijuana River Treatment Plant, the South Bay
Treatment Plant and urban runoff from the Tijuana River.
Finally, the City of Imperial Beach will focus on the
relationship between ocean currents (flow direction)
from the Tijuana River, and magnitude and frequency
of bacterial exceedances. The City of San Diego will
be implementing a series of Best Management Practices
(BMPs) in Mission Bay, targeting the Rose and Tecolote
Creek watersheds. The city will try increasing runoff
infiltration and structural treatment BMPs in the watersheds,
and water circulation enhancements in the Bay as a way
of improving water quality.
A
CBI highlight was the City of Encinitas installation
of an ultraviolet/ozone treatment facility at Moonlight
Beach (Cottonwood Creek) to reduce the bacterial pollution
in the creek before discharging it back into the lagoon
and out to the ocean. The project appears to be having
an immediate impact of reducing bacterial densities
and improving water quality. This year Moonlight Beach
received a grade of B, which was a significant improvement
from the two previous Annual Beach Report Card grades
of F and D.
Sewage
Spill Summary
The County of San Diego led all counties in both the
total number of sewage spills that triggered a beach
closure and total volume of sewage spilled. There were
44 beach closures due to sewage spills, discharging
10,784,231 gallons to the ocean. The bulk of the volume
spilled can be attributed to one extremely large sewage
spill from the Tijuana Slough of 10.5 million gallons,
which accounted for 97% of the total volume spilled.
There were 14 additional beach closures attributed to
Tijuana Slough sewage spills, with 13 spills of unknown
sewage volume amounts. Even without the Tijuana Slough
sewage spill, the county still had the highest volume
of sewage spilled of all California counties. Overall,
there were 11 major spills (> 10,000 gallons), 20 minor
spills, and 13 unknown volume amount spills that impacted
San Diego County beaches.
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