The closure of Goleta Beach Park since January 11 continues to frustrate city and county officials as much as it does the public. Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf and Goleta Mayor Paula Perotte got together on Wednesday with staffers from Public Health, the County Executive Office, and Public Works to try to understand why the bacteria levels remain so high and get the beach opened again.
Fecal coliform, enterococcus, and total coliform are tested twice a week in the sea water off Goleta in three separate places — near the slough outlet, at the beach closest to UCSB's border (just west of the parking lot), and off the grassy area in the middle. "We all thought the bacteria levels would dissipate with time," Public Health spokesperson Susan Klein-Rothschild said, as it has at Carpinteria beaches, another dumping zone. And levels have gone down at Goleta, "but not as quickly as we expected."
The results released Thursday from samples taken the day before, however, were good news for Public Health. Of the three locations tested, only one — the middle area — exceeded state levels. And only one of the three contaminants tested too high: enterococcus, found at 771mpn (the state maximum is 104mpn, which stands for "most probable number," or bacteria count per 100 milliliters of water), down from 1850 in the previous sample.