East Beach at Mission Creek was recently recognized as a “ beach bummer ” for its levels of fecal indicator bacterial pollution and assigned a D letter grade classification. What does this mean? Well, it's complicated, but a lot of progress has actually been made in recent years researching and improving water quality in Santa Barbara.
Fecal coliform bacteria can originate from a number of sources, including problematic sewer lines, animals, and homeless populations. In 2012, Channelkeeper’s enforcement efforts inspired the City of Santa Barbara to invest more than $20 million over the next seven years to repair 34 miles of leaky sewer pipes, resulting in a 91 percent reduction in raw sewage overflows by 2019. Fewer sewage leaks mean cleaner creeks and a healthier ocean.
In recent years, the Santa Barbara City Creeks Division has partnered with UC Santa Barbara to closely study the sources of fecal bacteria contamination at local beaches including East Beach at Mission Creek. DNA markers were used to differentiate contamination between human and animal sources. Many birds regularly congregate near the location where beach testing is done, and the UCSB study determined that fecal bacteria exceedances during dry weather had the strongest correlation to the presence of seagulls. Human DNA markers were also found consistently in ultra-low levels but were not correlated to fecal bacteria exceedances. The presence of swimmers and offshore sewer outfalls were identified as a potential source of these markers.