Coastal Waters

Adding a new wrinkle to the contentious debate over the safety of MTBE, Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday called for a state investigation into the health effects of dumping hundreds of pounds a day of the gasoline additive into Santa Monica Bay and other coastal waters.

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency updated water quality guidelines for the nation's beaches Monday, moving in response to charges that the federal government has not done enough to protect bathers from polluted water. The new guidelines, which update standards issued in 1986, may not immediately mean safer beaches and coastal waters. States have the authority to set their own water quality standards. But federal environmental officials said they hoped the suggested guidance would prompt state leaders to toughen their own oversight of recreational waters where people swim, surf and go boating.

Last month's dismal report card on the water quality at local beaches is just one compelling argument for the sort of national agenda that the Navy and the Department of Commerce will discuss with environmental groups next week in Monterey at a conference that the president and vice president plan to attend.

After two years of collecting global data and developing models, scientists have a new, comprehensive way to measure the health of the world's oceans that recognizes humans as a part of an integrated marine ecosystem. The scientists' report, published this week in the journal Nature, gave the oceans an overall score of 60 on a scale of 0 to 100. Among the world's 133 countries with ocean coastlines, scores ranged from 36 to 86; the United States scored slightly above average at 63. The ocean health index measures 10 ways that people benefit from the oceans, including food, jobs, ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and pure aesthetic value.

The first whispers of trouble came in 1984, when scientists set out to collect samples of uncontaminated bottom fish from along the Los Angeles shoreline. None could be found. In 1985 it erupted. Warning signs went up at the piers: Eating locally caught fish may be hazardous to your health.

Call it the slobber stopper. It looks like an elaborate fountain. Water gurgles through a series of red-tiled pools, spillways and chutes within sight of the pedestrian walkway that connects the bluffs of Santa Monica with the Santa Monica Pier. The Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility, or SMURRF, is the only thing preventing 350,000 gallons of urban runoff from coursing into the Pacific every day. The $12-million contraption is at the forefront of efforts to curb the torrent of pollutants that threaten the world's oceans.

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency updated water quality guidelines for the nation's beaches Monday, moving in response to charges that the federal government has not done enough to protect bathers from polluted water. The new guidelines, which update standards issued in 1986, may not immediately mean safer beaches and coastal waters. States have the authority to set their own water quality standards. But federal environmental officials said they hoped the suggested guidance would prompt state leaders to toughen their own oversight of recreational waters where people swim, surf and go boating.

More than 2,000 beaches were closed along the U.S. coastline last year when raw sewage threatened human health, and nearly 40% of the closures were in California, a nationwide environmental group said Thursday. Of the 22 coastal states surveyed, 14 reported beach closures. California, with 745 beach closings, had the most in the nation. Of those, 588 were in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

Chemical contamination has abated among vast stretches of America's coastal waters, but high levels of toxic pollution still are found in major cities and industrial "hot spots," the government reported Tuesday. The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stems from a six-year study of chemical traces found in mussels, oysters, bottom-feeding fish and sediment at 287 coastal sites in 23 states, from Maine to Hawaii.

New federal regulations will bar cruise vessels and large commercial ships from discharging sewage within three miles of California's coastline, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday. Officials say the new rules, which take effect next year, will amount to the nation's largest ban on sewage discharge and will keep some 20 million gallons of sewage out of coastal waters every year. A 2005 state law bans ships from dumping hazardous substances and runoff from showers or sinks, but regulating sewage falls under federal jurisdiction.

A Venice group on Monday sued the California Coastal Commission over the group's request to limit overnight parking in five areas near Venice Beach where residents have complained for years about the growing number of people living in cars and campers. The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, raises a fundamental issue: Does the state coastal panel have the legal authority to determine where people can and cannot park in coastal areas? The agency's staff recommended that the permit parking zones be approved, but commissioners in June rebuffed the idea, contending they were being asked to resolve a social issue rather than a beach access issue.

Pigeons fouling up your coastal waters? Who you gonna call? Bird Busters. Santa Monica's City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to hire Bird Busters to install netting under the Santa Monica Pier to reduce bacterial pollution caused by pigeon droppings and other debris. Concerned about bacterial contamination near the pier, the city teamed up with Heal the Bay to identify the source; pigeon feces were determined to be the likely cause.

The Senate gave its blessing late Thursday to key members of President Obama's science team, including an Oregon State University ecologist who will be the first woman and first marine scientist to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

West Coast governors urged the federal government Tuesday to keep new oil drilling rigs out of their waters and to spend more money on programs to restore the health of the Pacific Ocean. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, joined with Democratic Govs. Ted Kulongoski of Oregon and Chris Gregoire of Washington to reaffirm their opposition to opening undersea oil fields to new drilling, as part of an elaborate action plan for preserving coastal waters.

It's one thing when the French stock market plunges by almost a quarter, as it has since January. C'est la vie. Ditto when the president's wife, model-chanteuse Carla Bruni, sings of her physical fervor for her "lord" Nicolas Sarkozy the way she does on her album released last week. But an oyster blight? Quelle horreur! In the last two weeks, a mysterious ailment has wiped out almost all of France's year-old oysters, according to growers and the government.

America's estuaries and coastal waters are being increasingly polluted by human waste and industrial toxic substances, and they will get even dirtier without a new cleanup strategy, a congressional study said Tuesday. "Many of these waters now contain high levels of organic chemicals, metals and disease-causing organisms," the Office of Technology Assessment reported.

Sewage-treatment plants in Southern California are failing to remove hormones and hormone-altering chemicals from water that gets flushed into coastal ocean waters, according to the results of a study released Saturday. The preliminary findings were part of the most ambitious study to date on the effect of emerging chemical contaminants in coastal oceans.

For the sixth year in a row, a fish-killing dead zone of oxygen-depleted water is forming off the Oregon coast, raising the possibility it could become the new pattern as the climate warms, scientists said.