State reimburses county for water monitoring After four months of the County of San Diego footing the bill to monitor the quality of beach water, the state has unfrozen bond money to reimburse the county for the water-monitoring program.  The state will reimburse the county $600,620 over the next two years to monitor bacteria levels at 44 beach and bay sites from April 1 to Oct. 31. The state has reduced its reimbursement to the county by 10 percent from past years, according to Mark McPherson, chief of the Land and Water Quality Division at the county’s Department of Environmental Health.   During the past four months, the county had only sampled water at 19 locations and has decided to scale back its weekly sampling program to test 44 sites, instead of the previous 57, since the state restored the funding.   “This whole ordeal has allowed us to really look at the program and fine-tune it,” wrote Luis Monteagudoa, spokesman for county Supervisor Greg Cox’s office, in an e-mailed statement. Cox’s district includes communities from Pacific Beach to Point Loma. “As a result, we eliminated some sampling locations that have had very few or no incidents of higher bacteria levels and we added some new sites.” The state is funding beach water-monitoring programs throughout California with money from Prop 13 that voters approved in 2000 to sell $1.97 billion in bonds for clean water purposes. Annual stand-down fete scheduled at SD High The National Stand-Down for Homeless Veterans, an annual event during which military veterans receive medical care and social services help, has set its San Diego fete for Friday, July 17 through Sunday, July 19 on the upper athletic field of San Diego High School downtown. Stand-downs are a part of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to provide services to homeless veterans. Typically one to three days in duration, they provide food, shelter, clothing, health screenings, Veterans Administration (VA) and Social Security benefits counseling and referrals to a variety of other necessary services, such as housing, employment and substance abuse treatment. They are coordinated between local VA groups, government agencies and community agencies serving the homeless. The first stand-down was organized in 1988 by a group of Vietnam veterans in San Diego. Since then, they’ve been used as an outreach tool to more than 200,000 veterans and their family members. Nightly alcohol sales cut on Coaster trains In an effort to stem an increase in alcohol-related incidences on Coaster trains, the North County Transit District has voted to discontinue alcohol sales after 9 p.m. on all its runs. Conductors were to enforce the policy beginning July 1 after the San Diego Padres game at Petco Park. Coaster cars regularly stop at downtown’s Santa Fe Depot on Kettner Boulevard, to the rear of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, before continuing up the coast to Carlsbad. Passengers discovered drinking on board are subject to citation or removal from the train. The district moves more than 12 million passengers annually through a family of transit services, including the Breeze bus system and Sprinter light rail. Aquarium marks sharks Shark Week 2009 will be saluted by Scripps Birch Aquarium July 18 through 24. The celebration of the toothy types includes a screening of the documentary “Requiem” on Wednesday, July 22 at 6:30 p.m. “Requiem” highlights the place of sharks in the marine ecosystem and the current danger many shark species face as their numbers dwindle, with underwater footage from Hawaii to the Bahamas. The aquarium will also feature live shark encounters, a “Great White” photo booth, dive shows and shark scavanger hunts. Admission to “Requiem” is $5. Birch Aquarium is located at 2300 Expedition Way. For information, call (858) 534-FISH.