Group halts water testing

Laguna Beach High School’s award-winning ocean water testing program is floundering, after the Surfrider Foundation suddenly pulled the plug on funding.

The program, in which samples of ocean water are methodically collected and tested for bacteria every week, has been the main activity of the school’s Surfrider Club for eight years.

In 2006, the club was honored by the Environmental Protection Agency with an environmental achievement award for helping to promote water quality awareness.

Water quality reports from local beaches are posted on the Internet and published in local newspapers. The reports stopped being issued about six weeks ago.

The reports are unofficial, as opposed to testing conducted by the county Health Department, which is empowered to authorize beach closures or warnings when the bacteria count is too high.

Board votes to halt program

Last summer, the South Orange County Surfrider chapter organized a summer testing program in Laguna to replace the one at the high school.

But the chapter decided in December not to spend $25,000 to fund the water testing programs at several local schools, including Laguna Beach, said Rick Erkeneff, a chapter spokesman.

“Seven executive board members voted unanimously to halt the water testing,” he said. New guidelines for the clubs include activities like beach cleanups, recycling and recruitment, but no water testing. Since the foundation didn’t purchase the lab kits necessary for the water quality testing, the Laguna high school club ran out of materials weeks ago. The materials cost about $100 a month.

Club disappointed

Parent Kerry Rubel, who’s son, Mike, is co-chairman of the club this year, said her son is disappointed that the testing had to stop. Mike, 17, has been testing the water on local beaches for years.

“No reason was given,” Rubel said. “We were told there were no supplies and no funding.”

The club members put a lot of effort into the water program, meeting at 7 a.m. for the testing at the high school, which is conducted under the watch of Art Smart, a science teacher who is the club’s advisor.

Rubel said her son and the other co-chair of club, who has also been involved in the project for years, performed water testing for their Bar Mitvahs.

“They’ve been doing this since they were 11 or 12,” she said.

Rubel, who is president of the PTA Council for the school district, said the PTA has agreed to provide funding for the test kits through the end of the year, but the kids will have to charter a new club if Surfrider decides it can no longer participate.

“Surfrider said they wanted to organize beach cleanups, but that is already being done,” Rubel said.

The club was part of Surfrider’s Blue Water Task Force, with schools from San Clemente and Dana Point, which include the water testing in course curricula, she said.

Laguna Beach was the only school with a volunteer club that met outside school hours.

The Blue Water Task Force is a nationwide program involving schools and community members who test various water sites and post results, according to the Surfrider website.

‘We want to make it better’

Surfrider chapter member Erkeneff said the Foundation is rethinking its programs in all the schools.

“The [water testing] program didn’t meet the overall goals of Surfrider,” Erkeneff said. “We are reviewing the program. We want to make it better.”

Erkeneff said the funding has been “put on hold,” not canceled.

“We aren’t pulling the rug out from under the kids,” Erkeneff said. “We want to take what they do and give it teeth. The end goal is to force change and have their hard work lead to change. Until we have all our ducks in a line, it’s hard to keep pouring money out.”

Erkeneff said the group wants to be more active in lobbying cities to reduce pollutants, and may decide to drop water testing and data collection altogether.

“We have three different groups working on different issues, all calling themselves Surfrider,” he said. “It’s a mixed bag on how the data is collected.”

He noted that other groups also keep tabs on the data collected by the county health departments, and that the water testing duplicated what is being done elsewhere.

Surfrider clubs in the schools will be encouraged to focus their attention elsewhere, he said.