L.A. COUNTY, CITIES COULD FACE BEACH FINES HIGH BACTERIA LEVELS MAY LEAD TO $10,000-A-DAY ASSESSEMENT.

Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH Staff Writer

Los Angeles County and its cities braced Friday for the possibility of $10,000-a-day fines and citizen lawsuits if their beaches have bacteria levels that can sicken swimmers.

Tough new regulations enacted this week make it illegal to violate bacteria limits in Santa Monica Bay from April 1 through Oct. 31, when the region's beaches are crowded with visitors.

High bacteria levels in the water can cause gastroenteritis, dysentery, hepatitis and respiratory problems.

``We find it intolerable that people have to risk getting sick in order to swim in the ocean, and we're well on our way now to dealing with the problem because we have the necessary legal tool to enforce those standards -- and we intend to do so,'' said H. David Nahai, chairman of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Nahai added, however, that the board would not immediately start writing fines for every violation.

He said it would more likely ask the cities and county to determine the source of the bacteria and how to stop it from flowing into the bay.

Bacteria can come from bird and animal waste and septic tanks in beach communities. Urban runoff is believed to be the primary source of bacteria, carrying pet waste, fertilizer, oils and chemicals from inland through the storm drains out to the bay.

In recent years, cities and Los Angeles County have installed devices to catch the ``urban slobber'' in the storm drains during the dry seasons and divert it to the sewage treatment plant.

With eight such devices in place, Los Angeles city sanitation officials said they're ready for the new rules.

``The impact on the city would be zero. We are prepared and up and running,'' said Shahram Kharaghani, manager of the city's watershed protection division.

But despite the equipment to catch tainted runoff, Santa Monica Bay beaches continue to have high levels of pollution. From July 15 through Sept. 8, nearly two dozen of the 65 beaches around the bay violated the bacteria limit.

And that worries Los Angeles County officials, who say they're still trying to understand where the bacteria are coming from even as the new regulations give citizen groups the ability to file suit for violations.

``We are concerned that you put a regulation in place that doesn't take into account how young the science is and our uncertainty with the sources of bacteria,'' said Mark Pestrella, assistant deputy director of Los Angeles County Public Works.

``The county has spent $25 million so far studying the problem and installing devices to catch tainted storm water before it reaches the bay. The issue is complex. Any improvement in water quality at beaches is going to require all citizens who live and recreate at the beaches to change their behavior in some way,'' Pestrella said.

But David Beckman with the Natural Resources Defense Council said cities and counties need to have the threat of fines and lawsuits in order to aggressively clean up bacteria.

The NRDC and a number of other environmental groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 and won a commitment that water officials would set more stringent limits on pollution in Santa Monica Bay.

``It's not until there's an actual enforceable obligation that progress is made,'' Beckman said. ``Having a rule in place, as we do now -- that is basically a guarantee, a legal right for a clean, safe day at the beach -- is an important step.''

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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