The California Water Resources Control Board effectively restored a statewide beach water-monitoring program in November, giving county and state officials time to find money to keep the vital health program going. The governor slashed funding for the water-monitoring program in late September with a line-item veto. With county funds, environmental health officials were able to continue monitoring San Diego shores through October in anticipation of state funding, said San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox. Officials were able to share that data with local environmental groups working to keep local waterways clean. The state’s water resources board voted unanimously to pour more than $900,000 of unused bond money slated for Proposition 13-related water-quality projects to fund the monitoring program into next year. The vote also gives the board’s director the power to extend $1.9 million in funding for another year, if needed, Cox said. Cox said the funding is a stop-gap measure and that state and local governments will still have to find ways to fund the program into the future. Cox attended the Nov. 4 meeting where he said several people spoke on behalf of San Diego County. “It’s an extremely important program,” Cox said, “not just for the 3.1 million residents we have in this county but the 30 million that come to San Diego County [every] year.” The money would pay for the program that monitors about 55 sites from April through October. Municipal agencies checking for water bacteria levels around the city remained unaffected by the state cuts in September. Local environmental groups rely on the county’s water data and check it for indicators of the overall health of beaches and waterways. Without it, coastal communities could have missed warning signs about potentially unhealthy beach water, said Bruce Reznik, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper. Reznik echoes concerns over finding a long-term funding source for the program. Coastkeeper primarily checks inland waterways and relies on county and city data to lead volunteers to possible contamination sources. “[The program] has been a really important tool to raise awareness of the issue. Until then we … had a ‘head-in-the-sand’ approach. Everyone knew we had water problems but we didn’t have the data to back it up or to raise public awareness,” Reznik said. The water-monitoring program started about a decade ago as a result of Assembly Bill 411, which was inspired by a wave of concern about public health and the beaches and waterways. The program was the result of grassroots efforts began in San Diego, according to county health officials.