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For the fifth consecutive year, Humboldt County beaches placed on a pretty gross Top 10 list.

Clam and Luffenholtz beaches placed fourth and sixth respectively on the environmental organization Heal the Bay’s Beach Bummers list because of poor water quality — specifically from fecal bacteria contamination.

Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services supervising environmental health specialist Mario Kalson said the Beach Bummers list used data collected by the county as part of its state-mandated beach monitoring program.

Both Clam and Luffenholtz beaches along with Trinidad State Beach and Moonstone Beach are considered impaired waters by the State Water Board, Kalson said.

Humboldt Baykeeper director Jennifer Kalt’s environmental organization has also sampled other watersheds throughout the county for fecal bacteria contamination, specifically in Janes Creek in Arcata and Little River. “What we found suggests the source in Little River is likely to be septic systems and that the sources in Arcata in Janes Creek are not really known at this point,” Kalt said.

Kalt said past studies suggest that the sources of fecal bacteria at Clam and Luffenholtz beaches are human-sourced rather than from wildlife. Previous studies by her organization and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control found no fecal bacteria contamination in areas with minimal or no human activity, such as state and national parks and timber company lands, Kalt said.

Heal the Bay’s report card shows the beaches at the north side of Mad River mouth had an A+ grade, which Kalt said further suggests that the contamination is human-caused. “People say it’s probably just birds, seagulls and harbor seals,” Kalt said. “There is a high concentration of wildlife there.”

Kalt said she is really hoping that the county’s genetic analysis of the fecal coliform in local streams will point to the primary problems and lead to solutions.

Earlier this year, the state approved a Humboldt County plan for overseeing wastewater and septic systems. Kalson said that the Local Area Management Plan will require the county to review impaired watersheds and identify septic systems that may be contributing to the contamination.

In the meantime, Kalt and Heal the Bay suggest that people avoid swimming in waters at these two beaches for three days after significant rainfall to avoid potential infection.

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There is nothing more Californian than our ability to swim, surf and fish in clean water. And yet, we have fallen behind Kentucky and Texas when it comes to clean water enforcement. With industry advocates in the federal driver’s seat, we need state leaders in California to hold polluters accountable for harming our precious water resources.

It used to be that the federal government was a cop on the beat enforcing the Clean Water Act. With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency being subjected to a hostile takeover from polluting industries, the number of environmental enforcement cases and the amount of penalties levied has been cut in half.

At least under the Trump administration, California is going to have to go it alone. We are known internationally as a state that cares deeply about environmental protection, so you’d think we’d have this covered. California is suing the Trump administration to prevent rollbacks to vehicle emission standards. Frustratingly, this same vigor has not been applied to taking action against those polluting California’s beaches, bays and rivers.

The State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento and the Regional Water Quality Control Boards are charged with protecting our increasingly scarce and precious water resources. These agencies helped us survive a devastating drought, but are falling short when it comes to levying fines against polluters. In 2016, only 1 percent of the illegal industrial and construction storm water pollution cases brought to the state water board resulted in penalties. 

Six of the nine regional water boards did not issue a single fine in 2016. In 2017, just 2 percent of industrial and construction storm water pollution cases brought to the state water board resulted in penalties.

This means that of the thousands of refineries, trash dumps, auto dismantlers and cement factories from San Jose to the Oregon border, not a single facility was fined by the state for storm water pollution. In California, the polluter doesn’t pay. Even repeat offenders and those who are responsible for “serious” violations face no economic consequences. This puts the majority of companies — which are complying with the Clean Water Act — at a significant competitive disadvantage.

The same state agencies that don’t seem willing to issue penalties for polluted industrial runoff have a good track record when it comes to issuing fines for sewage pollution, so it can be done. Let’s start enforcing clean water laws by taking these three steps…

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5/15/18

Five years ago, California took the bold step of establishing a basic human right to “safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes." This right is of utmost importance to those rural communities whose drinking water has been contaminated by pesticides and nitrates from fertilizer.

But now polluters are seeking to avoid their legal responsibilities by hijacking a well-intentioned bill, Senate Bill 623.

SB 623 – its main proposals could be heard by a Senate budget subcommittee as soon as Thursday – would do one good thing and one very bad thing.

As originally drafted, the bill would establish a fund to assist for communities and individuals whose wells are polluted. Every Californian should support this effort. We have benefited from inexpensive food grown on the backs of farm workers living in these rural communities. In the richest state of the world's richest nation, absolutely no one should be consuming or bathing in dangerously polluted water.

But the bill would also perpetuate agricultural pollution. In the last few years, state water agencies and non-profit organizations have begun to press for better farm practices to reduce water contamination. In response, the agribusiness lobby has added language to SB 623 that would give industrial farms, livestock feed lots, sprawling wineries and others a pass on cleaning up their operations.

The “safe harbor” provisions would shield farm operators who pay into the fund from enforcement of basic water quality protection requirements, even though under the best-case scenario, they are collectively expected to contribute only about $30 to 40 per year for each of the estimated one million Californians using contaminated wells.

That's hardly enough for a month's worth of bottled water delivery, let alone adequate treatment or long-term cleanup. And in return, farm operations would be exempted from water quality and cleanup requirements, allowing them to continue polluting with impunity.

California has never embraced such a pay-to-pollute scheme, and we cannot start now, particularly as industries have unprecedented power in Washington, D.C.

The basic concept behind SB 623 remains sound – to fund a program to provide safe water to every Californian while we figure out how to clean up the mess that agricultural dischargers have created. But exempting those polluters from clean-up responsibility for a few pennies on the dollar is a terrible idea.

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After being cited by the state for violations of federal and state environmental laws, local engineer and business owner Kevin McKenny on Thursday resigned from the Humboldt County Planning Commission.

McKenny is a licensed civil engineer who owns KH McKenny Construction Inc. in Eureka. He has served on several local boards and commissions including the City Of Eureka Building Appeals Board, Humboldt Community Services District Board of Directors and the Humboldt Local Agency Formation Commission. He has served on the planning commission for more than four years.

Inspections by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found McKenny had developed the property without proper permitting and allowing illegal discharge of waste on the Third Slough, which is a tributary of the Eureka Slough and Humboldt Bay. The violations cited in the inspections included installing pipes and drains in the slough floodplain, which Thompson said they hypothesize were installed to remove water from the site to allow for development.

Part of the cleanup order will require McKenny to explain why the pipes and drains were installed.

“We want to hear from him on why he put the pipes there,” Thompson said.

Other violations cited include illegal grading of a wetland, removal of riparian habitat and pushing slash and waste into riparian areas.

Last week, three local environmental groups — Environmental Protection Information Center, Northcoast Environmental Center and Humboldt Baykeeper called for McKenny to resign from the Planning Commission after the state cited him for violations such as illegal grading, floodplain drainage and disposal.

“His conduct is not befitting an individual on the Planning Commission, particularly as the county moves to enforce violations of the its cannabis land use ordinance,” the groups’ May 11 statement reads. “Therefore, our organizations call for his immediate resignation. Should Mr. McKenny fail to resign, we ask that the Board of Supervisors remove him from his position.

“... We deserve Planning Commissioners who understand and respect local, state, and federal environmental protections,” the statement says in conclusion.

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