CA Beach Monitoring Funding Restored

Surfrider’s Global Headquarters and several California Chapters, including San Diego, Monterey, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties were instrumental in re-establishing funding for California’s beach water quality monitoring program. The funds were abruptly cut by Governor Schwarzenegger in September 2008, completely terminating beach monitoring in some counties and severely restricting monitoring elsewhere. In response, Surfrider launched an Action Alert that over 2400 activists responded to that sent emails to the Governor and state legislators to restore funding. Our San Diego County chapter initiated a separate action alert to urge their members to contact county supervisors to secure a new source of funding. Other environmental groups including Heal the Bay and the California Coastkeeper Alliance also lobbied to get funding restored. Surfrider participated in conference calls with these groups and state and county public health officials to strategize on ways to resolve the funding issue. On November 4, 2008 the State Water Resources Control Board approved using Beach Grant funds from Prop 13 to backfill the beach funding for the fiscal year July 2008 through June 2009. There is also an option to extend this funding source for the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year. Surfrider will continue to work on this issue to identify a long term sustainable funding source to continue to fund this program for the future.