State resumes water-quality monitoring at beaches
Mike Lee
San Diego Union Tribune
11/04/2008
SAN DIEGO – State funding for water-quality monitoring programs designed to protect beachgoers resumed Tuesday thanks to a stop-gap package approved by pollution officials in Sacramento.
San Diego County's health officials expect to receive about $300,000 for the 2008-09 fiscal year, by far the most for any county in California. The amount will be enough to restore their coastal water-testing program to where it was before September, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger scrapped funding for such efforts to balance the state's budget.
After little discussion during their Tuesday meeting, members of the State Water Quality Control Board voted unanimously to spend up to $1.97 million over two years to test coastal waters for bacterial contamination.
Despite the state's worsening budget shortfall – estimated by some at $10 billion – water officials said Tuesday that they have enough money left over from an eight-year-old bond measure to pay for beach water testing.
In recent weeks, leaders from San Diego County, Chula Vista, Coronado, Imperial Beach, National City and San Diego joined environmentalists in lobbying the state water board to approve the funding plan.
They said the loss of state money forced San Diego County to stop conducting regular testing at 55 beach sites and assessing data collected by wastewater agencies at 41 other spots. Counties typically do the work and are repaid by the state.
More than half of the speakers during the public-comment period at Tuesday's meeting were from San Diego County, including Supervisor Greg Cox and Gary Erbeck, head of the county's environmental health programs.
Erbeck said the testing has helped draw attention to problematic areas and reduce beach pollution in the county. “This program identified threats to the public health and notifies the public quickly on how to prevent exposure” to harmful bacteria, Erbeck said.
Cox said federal money helps pay for limited water quality testing during the winter and state funds support the full-scale program from April through October. The package approved Tuesday also will repay counties for work they did earlier this fiscal year...
