Oceans to turn pink again

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- In the ongoing quest to avoid a repeat of last

summer’s disastrous beach closures, researchers plan to dump more pink

dye into the ocean next week.

The test scheduled for May 10 will mimic this week’s release of 22

gallons of nontoxic coloring, which helped track water currents flowing

into Huntington State Beach from the Talbert flood control channel and

the Santa Ana River, city spokesman Rich Barnard said. The beach was off

limits for one day as a result of the experiment.

The state beach was where alarmingly high levels of bacteria were first

detected in July. The bacteria then spread up the coast. At its worst,

the pollution forced health officials to block off four miles of

shoreline during the peak tourist season.

Since October, bacteria levels have decreased for the most part but as of

Wednesday, there was a 4000-foot stretch of ocean between Magnolia and

Brookhurst streets that health officials recommended staying away from. A

posting at Beach Boulevard came down Tuesday.

The precise cause -- or causes -- of the contamination remains a mystery,

but experts suspect a factor may be urban runoff, untreated waste water

that drains everything from motor oil to animal droppings from streets

and lawns into the ocean. And last month, scientists detected

irregularities under the sand. More studies are required to determine

what those irregularities are and whether they have contributed to the

beach contamination.

While both the river and the channel discharge runoff into the ocean,

preliminary results from Monday’s test show mainly the water from the

channel heading up the coast, just like the bacteria last summer, said

Monica Mazur, a biologist at the Orange County Health Care Agency. In

addition to the dye experiments, scientists are testing water quality by

the shoreline, breakwater and farther out into the ocean in order to get

a complete picture of the situation, Barnard said.

But Monday’s dye test reminded some of scenes from the Bible.

“It’s rumored that Moses was here,” Barnard quipped.