You can feel good about taking a dip here in the ’bu.
Heal the Bay, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Monica, released its 27th annual Beach Report Card on June 9 for 2016-17, and results came back with Malibu in pretty good shape. The group tests 416 beaches on the California coast, including 21 beaches in Malibu. Bacteria levels that could be harmful to human health are measured on a weekly basis, and a letter grade of A to F is assigned to each beach. The better the grade, the lower the chance of getting sick from going in the water.
Every year, Heal the Bay designates the Top Ten Beach Bummers, which are the 10 beaches with the worst dry weather water quality in the state. The Malibu area, embarrassingly, has made the list a number of times in the past. In 2009, Surfrider Beach made the list. In 2011, it was Topanga State Beach. The year 2012 gave the city the distinction of having half the beaches on the list: Marie Canyon, Surfrider Beach, Solstice Canyon, Escondido State Beach and Topanga State Beach. In 2013, Malibu Pier was on the list. However, over the past four years, the city has apparently cleaned up its act.
In the most recent 2016-17 report, two beaches in Malibu have actually made Heal the Bay’s “Honor Roll,” by getting A+ grades during all seasons and weather conditions year-round — El Matador State Beach and “Malibu Point” (Surfrider Beach near The Colony fence).
Craig George, director of the city’s Environmental Sustainability Department, said in a phone interview that several factors came together to improve water quality off Malibu’s coast. He said the city’s water/wastewater system is being properly managed, and that stormwater management improved with Legacy Park, which diverts storm water runoff to a pond and then a treatment facility. “We’re capturing a lot more of the trash and debris,” he said.
George said the Malibu Lagoon restoration, which was completed in 2013, also played a role in making water safer at Surfrider. In addition, he cited a number of new state regulations that the city and the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility have had to comply with, as well as more stringent permitting requirements as helping to improve water quality.
As for the state-wide picture, Heal the Bay noted that since the six-year drought finally broke with heavy rains, poor beach water quality was often the result because of increased amounts of urban runoff.
“Bacterial pollution at some of California’s most popular beaches spiked dramatically in 2016-17,” the report noted, with nearly half of the 85 beaches monitored in LA County earning F grades during wet weather. That’s in marked contrast to the summer reporting period April to October 2016, when no beaches earned Fs.
“Those failing grades indicate a significant health risk to the tens of thousands of year-round ocean users in Southern California, who can contract a respiratory or gastrointestinal illness from one morning swim or surf session in polluted waters,” the report noted.
The infamous Beach Bummers List was split between Northern and Southern California this year. San Clemente Pier and La Jolla Cove both made their first-ever appearance on the list. The closest “bummer” to Malibu was Santa Monica Pier — for the fourth year in a row.
“We want people catching waves, not bugs, when they head to the beach,” said Sarah Sikich, Heal the Bay’s vice president, in a statement provided by Heal the Bay. “The reassuring news is that if you swim at an open-ocean beach in the summer [at least 100 yards away] from storm drains and creek mouths, you statistically have very little risk of getting ill.”
The 20-plus beaches monitored in Malibu include the following: Big Rock, Broad, Carbon, Encinal Canyon, Escondido Creek, Las Flores, Latigo Canyon Creek, Leo Carrillo, Little Dume, Malibu Pier, Marie Canyon, Nicholas, Paradise Cove Pier, Malibu Road, Puerco, Solstice Canyon Creek, Surfrider, Topanga, Tuna Canyon and Zuma. Grades on individual beaches are online at
beachreportcard.org.