By KPPC/Elizabeth Muñoz / KPCC
Three California State Parks will receive sewer-line makeovers thanks to the State Water Resources Control Board approving the use of $10 million in bond money from the Clean Beaches Initiative Grant Program. Doheny State Beach, El Capitan State Beach and Carpinteria State Beach will undergo repairs to fix their aging infrastructure.
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Some of the sewage systems are approximately 50 years old and are nearing the end of their useful life, Pat Leary, program manager for the Clean Beaches Initiative Grant Program, told KPCC.
The agency was left with some leftover funds, then began sifting through state parks and other entities up and down the coast to decide which ones needed them the most, she said.
“We decided that maybe this would be a good alternate use to fund some critical, preventative projects at California state beaches, because they’re highly used and important, and they’re high recreational use areas,” Leary said.
The three beaches chosen all have varying degrees of sewer system failure.
Joe Karkowski with the State Water Resources Control Board told KPCC that these problems could potentially pose public health risks.
“You want to address the problems when you see them, and when you see them coming, you want to try and get a fix in place,” he said.
Doheny State Beach has always had these types of issues — the agency was aware of the aging sewer lines across the beach from previous studies, Leary said. Read more