Beaches
Safe And Healthy Beaches
Safe and Healthy Beaches introduces three mechanisms that preserve and analyze beach water quality here in the City of Ventura:
- Beach Water Quality Diversion Stations (Dry Weather Storm Drain Diversions)
- Heal the Bay's - Beach Report Card for Ventura County
- Ventura County's Ocean Water Quality Monitoring Program
About the Beach Water Quality Diversion Stations
"Archy" - preventing pollution from entering the ocean improves beach water quality.
The State Water Board awarded the City of Ventura grant funding to improve beach water quality by constructing two dry weather stormwater diversion stations at the California Street and Figueroa Street storm drains. Most visible is the Diversion Station located on Figueroa St. adjacent to Surfer's Point. Referred to as "Archy", this cage-like structure houses a sliding gate that works in conjunction with the underground Storm Drain Diversion, sending untreated dry weather runoff to the City of Ventura's Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Technically speaking, the two stations divert dry weather storm drain flows from the California Street and Figueroa Street storm drains to the Ventura Water Reclamation Facility (VWRF). The diversions are intended to be operating at all times that the VWRF is not experiencing excessive levels of infiltration and intrusion associated with rain events. Each diversion has been designed to operate at a maximum of 40 gallons per minute.
Rain storms produce far more runoff than the VWRF can treat. In order to prevent rainwater diversion the stations are connected to rain gauges that interrupt pump operation during a rain event. Once a rain event ends, the instrumentation monitors lift station flow and pump duty cycles to automatically restart dry weather diversion when conditions allow. A manual override provides operations staff with the ability to interrupt and reinitiate diversion remotely based on the VWRF's ability to accept additional waste streams.
Water quality sampling analysis by Ventura County's Ocean Water Quality Monitoring Program and Heal the Bay's Beach Report Card for Ventura County provide critical public information about water quality on a year 'round basis. The City of Ventura is affected by what other upstream communities contribute to the watershed. What drains into a creek in Ojai, Santa Paula or Fillmore will eventually find its way into a river, onto the beach, and ultimately, the ocean. With gravity acting as the constant pull towards lower elevation, stormwater travels over a host of surfaces and co-mingles with various pollutants in the watershed. As stormwater moves, it picks up and leaves behind trash, sediment, engine oil drippings, toxins, pet waste, pathogens from animal feces, most of which can / should be prevented from entering a watershed in the first place.
When Ventura experiences a Beach Advisory or Closure, for example, stormwater (also referred to as "urban runoff") is often the cause. Upon reaching the ocean, if water sampling demonstrates concentrated levels of harmful bacteria that pose a threat to people and wildlife, a "posting" will occur due to these unhealthy conditions. Thus, our mission continues to remind Ventura residents and neighboring communities that (the vast majority of) stormwater does not go through a municipal treatment plant.
For Current Beach Postings, Sampling Results and Sampling History