Beach Report Card - California Coastkeeper Alliance

conventional analytical methods, and approximately $3 million a year if rapid methods are used at California’smost polluted beaches. Heal the Bay will continue working with the state and local governmentsthroughout California to ensure that future funding is secured.Although beach water quality monitoring funding has seen cutbacks before (state funding was reducedby 10% in 2007), the complete elimination of state funding in 2008 by Gov. Schwarzenegger sent amessage from Sacramento to the oceangoing public that its health is not a priority. It is imperativethat government officials, county and state health departments, and non-governmental organizations(NGOs) strive towards a long term solution that will permanently restore funding to counties’ beach andbay water quality monitoring programs.We have seen a marked and steady decline in the number of beaches monitored throughout Californiaas a direct result of this funding uncertainty. Seventy-two beaches were not monitored during thesummer dry (AB411) period and 47 were not monitored year-round compared to before 2008. This isequivalent to 2,770 fewer samples taken year-round compared to before 2008. Continued efforts mustbe made to ensure that adequate and sustainable funding becomes available for beach water qualitymonitoring immediately.General ObservationsChildren play directly in front of storm drains and in runoff-filled ponds and lagoons. Monitoring at‘point-zero’ (the mouth of storm drains or creeks) is the best way to ensure that the health risks toSince the Annual Beach Report Card was first published more thantwenty years ago, beachgoers throughout California have come to relyon the grades as a vital public health protection tool.Malibu Lagoon feeding into Surfrider Beach. Photo: Joy Aoki11