Wherefore the crap on Southern California's beaches?

By Eliezer Sherman

It goes without saying that most people’s fantasies about Southern California involve a beach: lounging, surfing, sailing, or cruising along routes 1 or 5 with the top down. Children squealing while building sand castles and digging holes to be filled in by rising tides*. Volleyballs and frisbees flying. Smiles, beach towels, sunshine, and palm trees swaying in a cool Pacific breeze in 70-degree temps with almost no humidity.What could possibly interrupt this idyllic fantasy?

Fifty years ago, on Amity Island, only a frenzied great white shark could do that. Today, unfortunately, it’s turds.

This Fourth of July weekend, authorities across Southern California are warning beachgoers to stay out of the water due to elevated levels of bacteria from runoff and sewage that could make swimmers sick.

Impacted beaches include shores from Santa Barbara to San Diego County—in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, San Pedro, Redondo Beach, Coronado, and, infamously, the California-Mexico border town of Imperial Beach, whose beaches have been officially closed for well over 1,000 days due to toxic runoff from the dirty mouth of the Tijuana River.

The malfunction of a sewer line pump that sent 2,000 gallons of sewage into the water led officials in Orange County to close a half-mile of Laguna Beach. Yes, that Laguna Beach—where a two-bedroom cottage near the shore was recently asking $18 million.

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Personally, I was shocked just the other day to smell raw sewage at Mission Beach in San Diego and to find it stuck in beached seaweed just above the tide where my dog was digging. Needless to day, my experience of the sunset was sullied.

The last time I walked over the pedestrian border crossing from Mexico to the U.S., I was nauseated by the intense scent of raw sewage in the Tijuana River canal running underneath the bridge toward the slough in California. I was there for a dental consultation, and in the end, part of my decision to get the work done stateside was related to that experience.

Residents and visitors to Coronado—a literally impeccable resort island replete with mansions, luxury apartments, and an iconic hotel—have begun posting pictures regularly on Nextdoor of murky tides, ostensibly from the Tijuana River runoff. Recently, U.S. Marines training on the island were getting sick from the pollution.

Just this month, someone’s dog became sick at Ocean Beach in San Diego after it ingested effluent that contained methamphetamine. Online, a commenter on the story noted a dog had died from doing the same.

Separately, a large sewage spill in Mission Bay caused runoff that temporarily closed the Ocean Beach Dog Beach entirely.

Ironically, the city of San Diego is currently weighing the closure of public beach restrooms as part of budget cuts despite these issues with pollution.

Further north, toxic runoff continues to leech into the ocean from the rubble of the devastating fires of early last year in the Palisades and along the Malibu coast, possibly feeding algae blooms.

While not related to sewage, I previously reported how along the coast in La Jolla and Pacific Beach, San Diego, dozens of dead seabirds have been discovered along the shore. Scientists are blaming, in part, warming ocean temperatures that drive the birds’ food deeper.

And in Oceanside, just north of San Diego, the beaches are literally disappearing because of old military installations.

I was born and raised in San Diego. Many of my earliest memories are from playing in the sand and surf at Mission Bay and Mission Beach. I see it as our responsibility as Southern California residents to ensure future generations have access to the same opportunities, contamination-free.

The acute environmental deterioration has broad economic implications as well. Studies show that 74 percent of Imperial Beach business have been negatively impacted by the crisis that sees up to 70 billion gallons of untreated wastewater flow into ocean annually. Thirty percent of businesses were forced to lay off staff. The small city of just over 25,000 is losing close to $2 million in property taxes and tourism revenue as pollution in the water and the air drives people away.

It appears as though any meaningful solution to this massive problem is going to take a lot more than volunteer trash collection, though that’s still an important effort.

Despite statements, memorandums, and budget allocations, it appears that neither the Trump EPA run by Secretary Lee Zeldin, local governments in the cities and counties along the coast including in Baja California, nor Sacramento have demonstrated the ability to effect real change.

This is not to say that remedying the problem is impossible. Cities like Boston, MA and Sydney, Australia have undergone major transformation that dramatically reduced beach closures and human-driven pollution on the shore through upgraded treatment plants, extensive monitoring, and deep ocean outfalls.

Southern California's challenge is substantially larger. The region is a massive agglomeration of cities and towns with at least 24 million residents and millions more visitors.

The issue is complicated by longstanding cross-border pollution which multiple administrations in the U.S. and Mexico have attempted to confront, but with limited success.

The encouraging part is that the basic engineering solutions already exist. Southern California and its Mexican neighbor, Baja, are going to have to tackle this issue in a truly concerted fashion before future generations lose one of the region’s greatest assets—and a crucial part of the Southern California identity—to literal crap.

*Digging holes in the sand is now illegal in Del Mar, CA.