Surfers and swimmers will now enter the water at their own risk since the state cut funding to the county’s decade-old water monitoring program to test bacteria levels in coastal waters. State officials say the state can’t sell bonds in this economic climate for the coastal water monitoring, and County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price said the county is not about to pick up the slack. Slater-Price said the county cannot withdraw money from its general fund – which is $3.58 billion for fiscal year 2009-10 – to pay for the water monitoring. Moreover, she said the board doesn’t want to set a precedent of paying for the program that might encourage the state to permanently drop the program in the county’s lap. “It’s an abberation of duty on the part of the state to let the program go,” Slater-Price said. “It’s so inexpensive and yet it does so good. The state let it lapse because they can’t get their act together.” Slater-Price said the Board of Supervisors is meeting with other counties, as well as environmental groups, to discuss the dilemma. Supervisor Greg Cox said the Board of Supervisors is “continuing to search for a short term, and permanent, long-term funding source for beach water testing in San Diego.” Cox traveled to Sacramento in mid-March to urge the State Water Resources Control Board to provide interim funding for the program. Last September, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut $984,000 from the statewide beach water monitoring program, and San Diego County lost $302,000. A month later, the State’s Water Resources Control Board offered to bond $1.97 million to monitor coastal water through 2010 but the state has not been able to sell the bonds. In 2000, voters had approved selling $1.97 million in bonds for clean water purposes. “Unfortunately the credit crunch hit at a point that we need $2 million,” said Bill Rukeyser, spokesperson for the State Water Resources Control Board. Under the coastal water monitoring program, the county tested bacteria levels at 55 beach and bay sites, including 16 sites around Mission Bay. In the summer months, between April 1st and October 31st, beach water was tested weekly. When counts of total coliform, fecal coliform and enterococci exceeded state standards, the county’s Department of Environmental Health posted advisory signs to beachgoers not to swim in the ocean or bay. The department will continue to post beach closure signs following raw sewage spills. One case in point: the county issued advisory warnings for one beach area in Mission Bay, called the Visitor’s Center, seven times in 2007, four times in 2006, two times in 2003 and three times in 2002. The department measured those three strains of bacteria that come from warm-blooded animals because they’re relatively cheap, easy to measure and are indicators that other pathogens may be breeding in the water. The bacteria can cause hepatitis, gastroenteritis diseases and ear, eye and throat infections. Surfers and swimmers often underreport such sicknesses from the contaminated water, according to Jack Miller, assistant director of the county’s Department of Environmental Health. The Regional Water Quality Control Board used the data to guide its storm water discharge program. If one area showed unusually high levels of bacteria, the water board searched for the source of pollution and attempted to resolve it, explained Mark McPherson, chief of Land and Water Quality Division at the Department of Environmental Health. The county compiled the water testing data into an annual report that it published on its website. Summer is soon approaching and with it thousands of tourists eager to head to the beach. For now, monitoring the quality of water at beaches, in the words of Slater-Price, “will go by the wayside.” Editor’s Note: The San Diego County Board of Supervisors will discuss funding beach water monitoring at a reduced level at a meeting on Tuesday, March 24 at 9 a.m. Supervisor Greg Cox has placed a resolution on the docket suggesting the board provide $150,000 for the fiscal year to monitor beach water, a reduced level from the state’s allocation of $302,000, until the state unfreezes its Prop. 13 funding. Once the state provides funding for beach water monitoring, the county plans to reevaluate the program to determine whether to restore it to its original form or keep the abridged version in place. “As general policy, the County does not backfill programmatic funding eliminated by the State,” states Cox in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. “This action is not a departure from that policy and does not reflect a backfill. The State Water Resources Control Board has appropriated the bond act money that is simply frozen…” The board meets at the County Administration Center, 1600 Pacific Highway, Room 335, San Diego, CA 92101.