Stay out of the water? No way

Paddle out of almost any beach and there's a chance you'll come in contact with a sewage spill, big-city runoff, a red tide or, sometimes, floating cattle.

The 2-million-gallon sewage spill that closed an 11-mile stretch of South Bay beaches earlier this month was the latest blow to the local surfing scene. The seepage came a few months after the environmental group Heal the Bay reported that L.A. County beaches last summer had the worst water quality in five years. The main ingredient of the pollution: fecal bacteria.

But some surfers can't keep their feet on dry land when great waves kick up. To the more common surfing perils of wipeouts and face plants, they add the risk of liver damage, diarrhea and eye infections.

This roll-the-dice attitude was evident on a recent Friday at Manhattan Beach before lifeguards reopened the shores. Half a dozen surfers had ignored closure signs and jumped into the surf not far from several bulldozers that were burying tons of contaminated sand.

"I think I'll live," Don Benson, a 56-year-old fitness trainer, said after climbing out of the surf, his wet suit glistening with salt water. He had been surfing just outside the spill zone for three days and had felt no ill effects. So on that day, he decided to chance it. After all, the water was a tempting 54 degrees, the waves crested at about five feet and the sky was a flawless blue. "We'll see what happens tomorrow. But I think I'll be OK," he said.

Besides, he pointed out, although he has surfed nearly his entire life, his only affliction came when he got a staph infection after surfing with an open cut -- in Hawaii.

Even those surfers who monitor water test results conducted by public health officials and avoid closed beaches can be caught off guard by a spill, surfer Balin Hewitt pointed out while changing out of his wet suit recently at Will Rogers State Beach, about 10 miles north of the Manhattan Beach spill site.

"Your eyes will burn, and the water smells like diesel fuel," the Santa Monica film production supervisor said of his past run-ins with polluted surf. The result, he said, feels like 24-hour flu, including nausea and diarrhea.

Contact with contaminated water can lead to a variety of nasty waterborne ailments. Ear, nose and eye infections are the most common illnesses, health officials say, as are skin rashes. Gastroenteritis (which can cause several days of vomiting and diarrhea) and staph infections that only antibiotics can clear up are also possible.