Ocean Water Quality at the Pier to be Examined by City

By Eric Heinz

In the past few months, the San Clemente Pier has registered higher bacterial levels than are healthy for humans, as tested by the Orange County Water Protection Program.

According to historical data, the Pier has ended up flagged as having potentially hazardous health problems a few dozen times since the beginning of the year. No closures were issued but they are warnings the program puts out.

“We regularly monitor the postings in beach water quality, and it’s not unusual to have a location (to be flagged) here and there, and when it started popping up more frequently that raised a warning. It doesn’t have that (long-term) historical data, and that’s what we’ve been acquiring,” said Tom Bonigut, deputy Public Works Director for the city of San Clemente.

The Pier hasn’t been monitored as thoroughly as other beach locations in the past. In 2014, the Water Protection Program started monitoring more locations along the Orange County coastline.

The cause of the problems at the Pier may be due to the large number of birds that frequent the Pier, causing droppings to taint the ocean water, but Bonigut said that’s just one possible theory that’s crossed his mind.

“The first step is to test a storm drain that’s under the Pier,” he said. “We’re testing some of the dry-weather runoff and we want to see if that’s coming out of there from upstream. It’s not a large watershed, but depending on that we may look more upstream. But if that’s not indicating anything we’ll do more observations of birds and look at our options of what may that many attract birds to that area.”

According to Water Protect Program officials, in 2012, the regional board brought together resources in order to monitor areas regionally as a way to gather a regional monitoring plan so the agencies can work under one umbrella to reduce redundancy and collect extra samples, which they said was more effective.

As far as how long the testing will take, Bonigut said that remains to be determined.

“It’s hard to say, and I don’t have test results yet, and it’ll take some time to get some estimates and work on it,” he said. “It may not be before the summer season is over, but the goal is to have something in place if there’s something that needs to be done before the high beach and dry season end to have it ready.”

Bonigut said he wants to collect several month’s worth of data before sending anything definite to City Council to examine. At Poche Beach, the city employs Adam’s Falconry service to deter birds from staying their frequently. Poche was on the water quality organization Heal the Bay’s list of  “Beach Bummers” for about a decade until the falconry service came in. But if the problems are detected to be coming upstream from the watershed, then more research will be needed to examine the source of the problems.