STEVE SMITH -- What’s up

The headline in the Daily Pilot read, “Surf and weather attracting

smaller crowds” and described why people are not hitting the beach as

much this year.

Missing from the story was a reason I believe may be as responsible as

the weather for the smaller crowds. This is the year that water quality

kept folks away from the beach.

A recent news report revealed some chilling statistics. There have

been 165 beach closures in Orange County since 1996. Since 1997, 150

Orange County surfers reported beach-related illnesses.

Closures have cost Huntington Beach $22 million. And the most

frightening: Sewage spills into our beach water now strike at a rate of

one every 34 hours. On Thursday, Harbor Patrol Beach near the Balboa

Yacht Club was closed to swimmers because of a sewage leak.

And now we are being told that the hundreds of millions of gallons of

raw sewage that have been pumped five miles out to sea for years off

Huntington Beach has crept back in about a mile offshore. Don’t let the

geography fool you. The sludge may be off Huntington Beach now, but it

may as well be near The Wedge too. Ocean slime knows no borders.

At this rate, it won’t be long before it’s hard to tell the sewer from

the beach.

A few days ago, I spoke with Dave Kiff, the assistant city manager for

Newport Beach, and asked him what he thought of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s

proposal to cut coastal cities in on the profits of any new offshore oil

and gas drilling. The money will be earmarked for spill prevention and

cleanup.

“I think it’s going to be helpful if it passes mostly because it’s

easier for us,” Kiff said. “We rely on the state government more than the

federal government and maybe that’s been a mistake on our part. In

Newport, we were able to get $1.2 million [in state funds] over the past

two budget years for some substantive things like structural improvements

which would hopefully divert stuff off the beach and for softer things

like studies that will try and find the source of the bacteria so that we

can pinpoint the problem.”

Part of the problem is conscious pollution -- plain, old illegal

dumping. Part of the problem is aging infrastructure. But another part of

the problem is lack of education and awareness.

“From our perspective, coastal cities need to find better ways to work

with our inland city friends,” Kiff said. “Someone made the point that a

person in an inland city can get up in the morning, wash the car and hose

down the yard and maybe there’s some dog waste there that goes down the

storm drain. Later on, the same family goes to the beach and could be

swimming in the stuff they washed away in the morning. Even people in

coastal cities don’t realize that the storm drains don’t go through any

treatment system, it shoots right out into the bay.’

Kiff has made storm drain violations a personal matter. “You can count

five or six times each morning when you see people hosing things down and

there’s soap going in the drain and I’ll stop and talk to them. I have

some educational fliers that I keep in my backpack but it’s just like a

little finger in the dike.”

The fliers are instructions for various categories of people on how to

properly dispose of waste and chemicals so they do not end up in the

ocean; so that our children do not have to swim in it. Mobile detailers,

homeowner and store owners are among those targeted, and there is a Web

site under construction.

All of this is good but we need to do more. I’d like to see more of a

national “Keep Our Beaches Clean” campaign similar to the effective “Keep

America Beautiful” campaign of the 1960s or the movement that got people

to wear their seat belts.

After those campaigns had run for a while, people were afraid of dirty

looks if they littered or failed to fasten their seat belts. And it

didn’t take long for Americans to go past the point of being shamed and

to the point where fastening one’s seat belt and throwing trash in a

trash can was simply the right thing to do. At that point, they acted out

the behavior even when no one was looking.

Kiff agreed. “I see that as cities’ best way to get this done. What

matters is when your neighbor says to you, ‘Hey, do you know where that

stuff is going? That’s going to the bay.”’

Today you have homework. Please help Newport Beach and other coastal

cities in their cleanup efforts by phoning your local state and federal

representatives (they’re listed in the White Pages) and demanding more

money for clean oceans. To get Kiff’s fliers, call him at (949) 644-3002.

It’s your job and your responsibility to keep our beaches clean, no

matter where you live. If you rely on others to get the job done, it

won’t happen. Please make the calls.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.