Submitted by Citizens Against Sewage
The January 9, 2018 lab results from Coronado’s North Beach storm drain outfall reflect dramatic exceedances – Total Coliforms were 3 times the daily limit, Fecal Coliforms were 20 times the daily limit, and Entrococcus nearly 8 times the daily limit in one test and 17 times the daily limit in the Idexx test. Idexx is a manufacturer of quick testing supplies. The point of using Idexx would be 24 hour results, otherwise it is a waste to do.
Downstream from the storm drain outfall is the entrance to dog beach: an off-leash dog park on Coronado’s North Beach. A relevant health & safety concern is sand contamination. A Hawaii study (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/worst-place-for-bacteria-beach-sand-water/) shows that pathogens live in sand 10 – 100 times longer than in water. If there is ponded water on the sand in front of the outfall pipe and/or if that ponded water has flowed to the ocean with rain, that contaminated water and sand it comes into contact with is extremely dangerous at these levels. Children, adults and pets having contact in or around this area is a recipe for illness.
The lab Coronado uses (Environmatrix) takes on average 10 days to get their results back to Coronado… this makes Coronado’s Water Quality Monitoring and Testing Program completely worthless as a public safety measure. It appears Coronado only tests to minimally satisfy their NPDES permit and does not intend to provide timely results to the public nor notify the public of any hazards related to contamination reflected in their independent test results. Citizens Against Sewage (CAS) advocated to get the City’s test results online – they had previously been testing without releasing results to the public.
The testing protocol and water quality monitoring system requires reform on a multi-agency level including City of Coronado, San Diego Wastewater Division and SD County Department of Environmental Health. Citizens Against Sewage encourages the City of Coronado to use the City of San Diego lab or County lab to do this testing. They are the agencies that test all the other sites listed on www.sdbeachinfo.com. This would provide faster results and the addition of the City of Coronado’s lab results for North Beach to the County website.
Additional studies of pathogens in beach sand and whether using fecal indicator bacteria testing as done now is sufficient for public health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109870/
