Children play on the sand at Mother’s Beach during the most recent closure of the area to water contact. Photo by Sarah Bennett.
After a six-day closure of Alamitos Bay beaches due to a sewage spill originating from the failure of a private sump pump, the City of Long Beach reopened the water to human contact beginning 9AM Saturday.
“Given that the past two days have produced water quality findings within the State’s recreational water quality standards, the City of Long Beach is re-opening Mother’s Beach and the other locations inside the Alamitos Bay that were previously affected by last week’s spill,” the City’s Health Officer, Dr. Mitchell Kushner, said in a statement released Saturday.
The spill—which was caused by a sump pump servicing several homes in the gated community of Bixby Terrace—was reported as lasting for approximately 17 hours and forced the closure of Mother’s Beach and Marine Stadium to water contact beginning last Sunday.
Nelson Kerr, Director of Environmental Health for the City, said at the time that the spill was low-volume and that the Health Department estimates only 1000 gallons were released into Cerritos Channel, which flows directly into Alamitos Bay. Testing on Monday in various parts of the bay, however, showed that the spill had affected more areas than originally thought and the closure of all beaches to water contact inside Alamitos Bay went into effect Tuesday.
This is not the first time that a sewage spill originating from the Bixby Terrace neighborhood has caused closures in Alamitos Bay. Just two years ago, a failed circuit breaker caused a privately-owned sump pump station in the same gated community to spew a similar amount of sewage into Cerritos Channel. Both of the failing pumps are maintained by Bixby Terrace’s private homeowners association and though no cleanup was required in either instance, the city intends to find some recourse for the repeat offenders.
“Long Beach is evaluating appropriate enforcement measures against the private property owner responsible for the spill,” said the statement.
