Surfrider Foundation: MAKING WAVES, "Queen of the Coast"


Test tubes in hand, protecting surfers at the point. Front row, left to right: Delia Gorey, Glen Kent, Richard Sweet, Brian Brennan. Back row, left to right: Kevin Buddhu, Bob Steele, Buddy Steele, Larry Heinlein, Terry Fulton.	Queen of the Coast by Tim Maddux MAKING WAVES, Oct./Nov. 1998

After many years of monitoring, education, and lobbying by the Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Isla Vista chapters, things are looking to get better in the polluted lineup at Rincon. We now have justifiable hope that in winters to come the "Queen of the Coast" will be a much cleaner and safer place to surf. This will require two counties, the City of Carpinteria, and a group of homeowners on the point to quickly work out bureaucratic knots and proceed with a plan to target solutions to the ongoing problem of bacterial contamination of the point.

The Rincon Watershed
The watershed feeding Rincon Creek is the largest along the south coast of Santa Barbara County, running through a wide range of agricultural lands before passing under Highway 101 and out to sea. Most of the upper watershed lies within Ventura County, while from Highway 192 to the sea the county line runs right down the center of the creek. Surfers regularly cross the county line when riding from the Indicator to the Cove, and again when running up the point for another go.
    During the strongest of this past winter's storms the creek's heavy flow carried enough sand to the point to widen the recreational beach along the cove by as much as fifty yards. This was no doubt a great comfort to those homeowners along the point behind that beach, having received a respite from any more waves crashing into their homes. Seventy-two of these homes are on the point, nestled in between the freeway and the ocean, with their numbers split roughly in two by the creek running down the middle. All of the homes rely on septic tanks to deal with their sewage; septic tanks that many believe are the primary source of the extremely high coliform bacteria counts in the ocean waters right by the creek.
    In the fall of 1997, chapter activists conducted tests upstream and downstream of the homes on the point. They found that on average there was a 6-fold increase in MPN (most probable number) counts of e. coli contamination as the creek waters traveled downstream of the homes on the point.
    In response to pressure from the Santa Barbara Chapter, the Environmental Defense Center, Community Environmental Council, the Urban Creeks Council, and members of the public, the Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services department initiated an ocean water quality monitoring program at the mouths of creeks at 16 local beaches. Testing for total coliform, fecal coliform, and fecal strep (enterococcus) began in September of 1996 on a weekly basis. These tests increased public awareness of the pollution problem and spurred the formation of C.U.R.E. (Clean Up Rincon Effluent), a group of local surfers who began circulating a petition in an effort to mobilize public support for a cleanup of the point.
    Unfortunately, the much-publicized heavy rains of the El Nino season muddied the waters, with officials pointing to unusual storm runoff as the likely cause of the contamination. By the summer of 1998, however, it became clear that there was still a significant problem at Rincon, as it remained closed nearly every week due to extremely high fecal coliform counts. In response to this and to a petition of nearly 4000 signatures gathered by C.U.R.E., the County of Santa Barbara has added Rincon to the list of creeks to be studied in its new project.

Project Clean Water
In September, Ventura and Santa Barbara County elected officials and staff conducted a multi-jurisdictional meeting in a packed house with approximately fifty other local elected officials and candidates for local office, staff, public interest groups, and concerned citizens to discuss Rincon Point and Project Clean Water.
    As part of this project, staff will take water samples from 10 locations, upstream and downstream of suspected sources as was done by Surfrider's Rincon Project. Samples will be taken at 4 different times through the next year: a baseline or low flow case before the rainy season begins, after the "first flush" of runoff into the creek, in the middle of the season, and at the end of the season. The sampled water will then be tested for a myriad of contaminants, primarily coliform bacteria and nutrient loads (phosphorous, nitrites, ammonia, total nitrogen). Local chapters, Surfrider's Environmental Issues Team, and other groups are continuing to work with both counties to define the most appropriate tests for the Rincon watershed. The Santa Barbara Chapter has also offered the data from the Rincon Project to the County, as well as the remaining funds from the project to speed up the implementation of testing at Rincon Point.
    The Rincon Project's data would seem to point a finger at the septic tanks on the point as a significant source of creek water pollution. Septic tanks require a minimum of 12 feet of dry earth from the bottom of the tank to the finish grade. At Rincon many of the homes are only three feet above the mean high water line. This observable potential for tidewater intrusion, along with known groundwater elevation during high creek flow events makes the septic systems and the Rincon homeowners' willingness to improve them or replace them with a sewer hookup a big concern. The activist and surfing community breathed a big collective sigh of relief when Steve Halstad of the Rincon Homeowners Association stated at the multi-jurisdictional meeting, "If it turns out that our septic systems are contributing to polluting the creek, I guess we'll have to get on a sewer system."
    Similar cooperative sentiments were expressed from Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, whose district includes most of the Rincon Creek watershed and half the homes on the point. The Ventura County Environmental Health Department will at long last be conducting its own water quality testing on Ventura County beaches, and the County Board of Supervisors will be voting soon to provide manpower and funding for the Rincon portion of Project Clean Water. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, a vote on that funding is not yet on the Ventura Supervisors' agenda. Local chapter activists are continuing to put pressure on the supervisors to end the delays and begin testing Rincon immediately. Assuming that the septic tanks are identified as a significant contamination source, officials from the two counties must work closely together to enable a sewer line to plumb the entire point, crossing county lines. If the spirit of cooperation continues to run high, solutions may be reached very quickly.

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