Beach Water Use Warning for Several Los Angeles County Beaches

For Immediate Release:

July 28, 2021

Beach Water Use Warning for Several Los Angeles County Beaches

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is cautioning residents who are planning to visit several Los Angeles County beaches near Dockweiler and El Segundo to be careful of swimming, surfing, and playing in ocean waters around discharging storm drains, creeks, and rivers.

Recent special ocean water sampling conducted by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health on Tuesday July 27th determined that several beach areas near the Hyperion plant exceeded state standards for bacteria in water.

Note that no sewage is currently being discharged from the Hyperion plant into the ocean and ocean waters. Bacterial levels often fluctuate from day to day and can be impacted by recent rain events.

Lifeguards have posted yellow advisory signs and the Public Health Beach Water Quality webpage has been updated.

Affected beach areas include:

El Segundo Beach

Grand Avenue storm drain (Near Dockweiler Tower 60)Dockweiler State Beach
Ballona Creek (Near Dockweiler Tower 40)
Culver Blvd storm drain
Hyperion Plant outfall
Imperial Highway storm drain (Dockweiler Tower 56)
Westchester storm drain
World Way extensionAdditionally, Public Health team members have initiated door-to-door outreach to the community impacted by the plant’s odors and will continue this activity through Friday.Other beaches also under advisory include the below beach areas. These advisories are very likely due to day-to-day fluctuations in ocean water bacteria levels. At this time, there is no reason to suspect these increases in beach water bacteria are due to the recent sewage discharge at Hyperion.
Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica
Montana Ave. storm drain at Santa Monica Beach (Santa Monica North Tower 8)
Wilshire Bl. storm drain at Santa Monica Beach (Santa Monica North Tower 12)
Temescal Canyon storm drain at Will Rogers State Beach
Avalon Beach at Catalina Island (50 feet east of the pier)
Recorded information on beach conditions is available 24- hours a day on the County’s beach closure hotline: 1-800- 525-5662. Information is also available online at our website: Beach Water Quality website or contact the County’s beach advisory hotline: 1-800-525-5662 where recorded information on beach conditions is available 24-hours a day.

The Department of Public Health is committed to promoting health equity and ensuring optimal health and well-being for all 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. Through a variety of programs, community partnerships and services, Public Health oversees environmental health, disease control, and community and family health. Nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health comprises nearly 4,500 employees and has an annual budget of $1.2 billion. To learn more about Los Angeles County Public Health, please visit www.publichea lth.lacounty.gov

Call for Wiseburn Watch Board members

Wiseburn Watch is an organization run entirely by volunteers and a 501c(3) nonprofit under IRS guidelines.

Our purpose:

The goal of Wiseburn Watch is to maintain, protect and enhance the value of the community.
To create and maintain productive relationships with law enforcement, county officials, and other groups with common interests in order to reduce crime, provide for the needs of the community, and increase disaster preparedness.
To promote community improvement and beautification projects, as well as encourage “good neighbor” habits within the community.
Assist in the training, equipping, and maintaining a community (CERT ) Community Emergency Response Team.

Every two years we hold a board election, we hope that some additional community members will be inspired to join the Board of Directors, and make the next two years even better than the last. The time has come to call for all those interested in becoming candidates for the Wiseburn Watch Board of Directors.

The deadline for submitting your name or nominating someone for the Board is Sunday, July 25th at 5 PM. If interested, please email watch@wiseburnwatch.club

How the voting process works:

There will be a 1-week email voting period (between July 19th and July 26th). Candidate info & voter link will be sent out to all current watch members.
Each member will get one vote. Voting is done through the email addresses used for the watch list.

How the new Board comes in:

Mid-August – Joint meeting with both current and new board members.
August – Transition period, information transfer from old to the new board. Members stay on in different roles, so this can be easy.
September – New Board takes over operations. The new board elects a president from the group. The President will then assign different positions on the Board to the other members. You will get a chance to submit 3 choices for the job you wish to do.

We hope that you’ll consider joining the Board of Directors. It really is a great organization with hard-working neighbors, all getting stuff done for the good of the Wiseburn community.

WE ASK PLEASE ONLY CONSIDER RUNNING FOR THE BOARD IF YOU HAVE THE TIME AND ENERGY TO COMMIT TO DOING THE WORK – We need your help! ?

DRP Safety Element Update – Community Input Session (Meeting Notes)

Thank you for the small group that attended yesterday evening’s workshop on the safety element update (see the attached flyer or 15-minute video ) focusing on how the Department of Regional Planning (DRP) can help unincorporated areas deal with hazards of climate change and resiliency that will be new updates to the existing safety element updates of flood, fire, emergency response, and seismic and geological hazards.

To summarize the ideas discussed around the questions posed by the Department of Regional Planning (what climate hazards affect our community?, what can we do?, and how can LA County help us?) the group came up with the following four items:

Senior wellness checks during periods of extreme heat
Increase in tree cover as part of a General Plan for unincorporated areas (helps with resident wellness, water runoff, smog reduction, CO2 sequestration, reduction of greenhouse gases)
Increase of green space area (our particular area has 1 utility-owned lot utilizing 15,000 sq. ft. and our request for green space use was rejected by the utility in the past)
Scaling up the water recapture efforts by the County (rain barrel capture even in periods of drought often exceed capacity during light rainfall) to recapture rainwater

Have any ideas that you don’t see reflected above? We need your inputs.

Please do let us know by July 6th so we can officially send the DRP our comments for their climate adaptation workshop scheduled on July 15 from 6 PM-7 PM –

Pre-register here: bit.ly/3fETNXk

LA County Public Works Resources

LA County Public Works Resources
- Public Works 24/7 report hotline (Traffic controls maintenance & repair, report graffiti, hazardous spill, street light outages, tree damages): 626-458-4357
- Public Works dispatch (for emergencies, afterhours, or urgent request): 800-675-4357
- For all constituent requests related to Public Works you can fill out an inquiry here: https://dpw.lacounty.gov/contact/. We also have an app called “The Works” that can be downloaded by iPhone and Android users.
- Immediate waste management contact:
  - Phone: 8888DUMPING or 88883867464 (*Please note that this hotline has eleven numbers. Your call will be directed to the hotline.)
  - Text or Email: dumping@pw.lacounty.gov
- Street sweeping online request form: Request: Street Sweeping (lacounty.gov)

Keeping Wiseburn Clean – links

With the change of seasons, you may have noticed an increase in the amount of trash/dumping in the Wiseburn neighborhood.

What can you do? Inform your friends and neighbors of how to get help from our County and Utility service providers.

Here are 6 resources on keeping the community clean by requesting service and disposing properly and legally of large items, carts, graffiti, animals, and pests, please help avoid blight in the neighborhood:

Bulk-item Pickup Waste Management provides FREE unlimited items pickup twice per year all you have to do is schedule it 48 hours in advance of our Monday pickup day and have it on the curb by 6AM on Mondays
- simple online form you don’t even need to know your account number – Request Bulk Pickup Form – Waste Management
  - Acceptable items include furniture, mattresses, rugs, appliances and electronic waste, such as TV’s, computers and VCR’s
    - Ten (10) 32 gallon resident-generated trash/yard waste bags allowed in lieu of one bulk pickup.
  - Non-acceptable items include construction debris, haz waste, auto parts, industrial discards, liquids and excessively large items.
Illegal Dumping? Report it to the Department of Public Works via the The Works app (often use this for items left on La Cienega – it works!)
Abandoned shopping cart? – call California Shopping Cart Retrieval Corporation at (800) 252-4613, by email, or online.
Graffiti Call the Graffiti Hotline at 800 675-4357 (HELP) or Graffiti Report page
Stray or confined animals including dead animal pickup and non emergency dog bites – Count of LA Animal Care – Service Request
Mosquito, bee, or red fire ants? – LA County West Vector Control District – call (310) 915-7370 or Service Request – West Vector Control District