Palos Verdes homes owners have one more thing to enjoy here on the Peninsula. Yesterday, Heal the Bay reported Palos Verdes beaches and coves are in the 2012-2013 top list for California. This means that our local waters have received grades of A & A+ throughout the year. They assign grades to more than 600 sites along the West Coast for summer dry-weather water quality and to more than 300 locations that are on year round monitoring. Heal the Bay is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds safe, healthy and clean. They use science, education, community action and advocacy to pursue their mission.
Heal the Bay published their first Beach Report Card in 1990 and covered about 60 locations in Los Angeles County. At that time, beach goers knew little about the health risks of the water around them. Since that time, there is a great deal more information to help keep pollution and sewage spills off our local beaches.
The Beach Report Card (BRC) is based on the routine monitoring of beaches by local health agencies. They collect water samples looking for bacteria that indicate pollution. The better the grade on the beach means the lower the risk of illness to beach goers.
The Beach Report Card program is funded from grants from different foundations. Volunteer groups as well as funding are constantly needed to ensure this program continues to minimize the pollution of our beaches.
To read more about Heal the Bay’s Beach Report Card program click here.
Photo above is of Portuguese Bend Beach Club in Rancho Palos Verdes
