Community Corner
Heal The Bay Releases Latest Grades for Seal Beach Coastline
City shores see mostly A's, but the beach off of 1st Street receives low grades during part of the year
C'mon in! The water's (mostly) fine!
Despite a few low to middling scores, much of Seal Beach's shoreline took high marks Thursday in a review of western United States beaches.
Heal the Bay, the Los Angeles-based environmental organization, revealed its 2012-2013 report card, a summary of the past year’s shoreline water health at more than 600 beach monitoring locations across California, Washington and Oregon.
Seal Beach's Grade
Beach Summer Winter Wet
Dry Dry Weather
- Beach off A C F
of 1st Street - Beach off A A C
of 8th Street
Beach 100 yards A A A
south of pier - Beach off A A A
of 14 street - Surfside Beach A+ A+ A+
off of Sea Way
In the report card, “Summer Dry” refers to April through October, “Winter Dry” refers to November through March and "Wet Weather" refers to anytime during the year when environmental factors lead to excessive moisture in the area.
In fact, most Orange County beaches did well in the annual survey, with 95 of 102 testing spots being given an A or B during the summer.
Statewide, only 3 percent of testing sites across California earned grades of D or F in Heal the Bay's 2013 Beach Report Card.
But Los Angeles and Orange county beaches were still featured prominently on the Top 10 Beach Bummers list included in the report. The beaches on the list were:
- Avalon Harbor;
- Cowell Beach in Santa Cruz County
- Poche Beach in Orange County
- Cabrillo Beach, harborside
- Malibu Pier
- Marina Lagoon in San Mateo County
- Doheny State Beach in Orange County
- Redondo Beach Pier
- Windsurfer Circle at Candlestick Park in San Francisco
- Tijuana River mouth in San Diego County
Heal the Bay attributed the slightly improved water quality in Southern California to infrastructure improvements aimed at stopping bacterial pollution, such as the diversion of ocean-bound storm water to sewage treatment plants during dry periods, but the biggest factor may be the low amount of rainfall received over the past two winters.
Much of the pollution detected in Southern California surf zones is flushed out of storm drains during downpours.
"We are heartened by numerous individual beach success stories, but extremely dry weather is likely masking the severity of stormwater pollution," Kirsten James, Heal the Bay's science and policy director, said.
-- City News Service Contributed to this story
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