Another Long Beach sewage spill forces beach closures
The 20,000-gallon sewage flow affects beaches from Alamitos Avenue to 72nd Place. It is the fourth spill this year to close beaches.
A sewage spill in Long Beach has forced authorities to close a nearly four-mile stretch of shoreline, and the area is expected to remain closed indefinitely, authorities said today.
Close to 20,000 gallons of sewage flowed into the Los Angeles River via Compton Creek on Tuesday afternoon, caused by a broken sewer line near Watts, said Nelson Kerr, the recreational water manager of the city of Long Beach. From the creek, the sewage traveled west into Long Beach.
The closure affects beaches stretching from Alamitos Avenue to 72nd Place, Kerr said, and they will remain closed until testing determines that bacteria levels are safe.
In a statement late Tuesday, Kerr said the beach was closed "to protect the public from serious illness due to exposure to untreated sewage."
Long Beach has been hit by 31 sewage spills since January, four of them serious enough to close beaches. The number is about 10 fewer than this time last year, but they have caused three more beach closures than in the same period last year.
Officials said the location of the spills caused the greater number of closures this year.
"We just had a couple that were closer to the beach," Kerr told The Times after a 12,000-gallon sewage spill near Spinnaker Bay on July 26 closed Mother's Beach, Marine Stadium, Colorado Lagoon and Alamitos Bay. Those closures forced organizers to postpone the annual Naples Island Swim competition.
For information on Long Beach's closures, the city's health department has a water quality information hotline at (562) 570-4199 and updated information posted at www.longbeach.gov/health.
Long Beach has roughly seven miles of public beach and more than 50,000 visitors each summer, city officials said.
francisco.varaorta@latimes.com
