LOS ANGELES — Gerry Klatt gazes across the beach toward a peaceful bay at Cabrillo Beach, seemingly the perfect place for his daily dip. But he won't swim there.
Instead, Klatt braves the pounding waves about 100 yards away on the side of the beach exposed to open ocean where he believes the seawater is cleaner.
As it turns out, on many days he'd be right. The inner side of Cabrillo Beach in Los Angeles' port town of San Pedro leads the list of California beaches that saw the highest percentage of days with a bacteria count deemed potentially dangerous. It's part of a new report released Tuesday that lists the most troubled beaches in 29 coastal and Great Lakes states.
The study looked at the number of days in 2018 that the water had bacteria counts exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards. The Environment America Research and Policy Center report says the high counts can sicken an estimated 75,000 swimmers a year.
Most days of the year, beaches are considered safe. But researchers found bacteria counts can spike on certain days with fecal matter from people or animals as the chief culprit. It comes when sewers overflow or when fecal waste on streets washes into streams or creeks that flow to lakes or the ocean. A co-author of the study says it shows more work needs to be done to clean up lakes and oceans.
Alis Zuniga pours a bucket of seawater on her half-buried friend at Cabrillo Beach in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles. Though it is clean most days, the beach can have high bacteria counts at certain times of year. (Photo: Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY)
Most days of the year, beaches are considered safe. But researchers found bacteria counts can spike on certain days with fecal matter from people or animals as the chief culprit. It comes when sewers overflow or when fecal waste on streets washes into streams or creeks that flow to lakes or the ocean. A co-author of the study says it shows more work needs to be done to clean up lakes and oceans.
Alis Zuniga pours a bucket of seawater on her half-buried friend at Cabrillo Beach in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles. Though it is clean most days, the beach can have high bacteria counts at certain times of year. (Photo: Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY)
"It's hard to believe that 47 years after we passed the Clean Water Act that we are still concerned with poop in the water when people want to go swimming," said John Rumpler, clean water program director for the center.
In Chicago, 19 of 19 beaches sampled had at least one day last year when beaches were considered potentially unsafe for swimming. One, South Shore Beach, showed contamination on 93 of the 98 days in which samples were taken.
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