We deserve clean beaches

The Pacific Ocean and sandy beaches have historically been the region's main attraction. From Beach Boys songs to "Baywatch," our lifestyle has been celebrated and lionized throughout the world.

Even Cal State Long Beach officials understand the power of our beach culture, promoting the university to prospective students worldwide as "The Beach." But with the recent news that Huntington Beach, a local favorite just a few minutes south of the campus, may be facing another summer of closures, the myth is meeting the muck.

Last week, Orange County health officials posted water quality advisories along a 1.5-mile stretch of beach after they discovered high levels of enterococcus bacteria in water samples. The advisories appeared to repeat the closures last year that effectively shut down most of the beach for most of the summer.

Fortunately, most of the advisories were removed the next day. However, health officials are at a loss to explain the return of the high bacteria counts. Since April, urban
runoff, the predicted culprit, has been diverted to treatment facilities before being sent to the ocean.

More than $2 million has been spent to study the problem with no definitive solutions to date.

Huntington is not the only beach with problems. Up and down the Southern California coastline there has been a seemingly high number of water quality advisories and closures in recent months.

Long time natives remember a time when a water advisory or closure would have been shocking. Today, they are almost routine.

The question for all Southern Californians is clear: how do we get our oceans clean again?

The first order of business is to understand that cleaning up our oceans is possible. While it can be easy to throw our hands in the air and succumb to hopelessness, we have to realize it can be done.

The spiritual and emotional case for clean water are there, along with economic arguments for clean oceans.

Beach communities will be hit hard if the state doesn't reduce pollution . Already, visits to Los Angeles County beaches have dropped by half since 1983, according to a Los Angeles Times article. Most of the blame goes to water quality issues.

Tourism will suffer if people think the water is unsafe, and we cannot afford to lose a huge part of the industry. According to the state's Division of Tourism, California's cities brought in an estimated $37.6 billion in 1997 and nearly 400,000 jobs statewide.

New laws, incentives and investments in sewer infrastructure can be used to save our oceans and help the economy.