Famed Marin County Beach Is Closed Indefinitely by Wastewater Leaking From Bluffs

Part of a North Bay beach known for its popular surf spots has been closed indefinitely after county officials discovered wastewater seeping onto the sand, leaving locals and business owners with lots of unanswered questions.

The southwest part of Bolinas Beach, which sits at the tip of the part of town known as “Big Mesa,” has been shut down since Sept. 6. Officials found effluent seeping from a couple dozen locations along the bluffs, spanning roughly a mile and a half of the beach.

The effluent was first discovered by Marin County employees inspecting a permit application who noticed pooling liquid in the area, said Sarah Jones, the Community Development Agency’s director. After testing the liquid, they found that it was consistent with bacteria present in human waste, including E. coli.

At a community meeting last week, Jones said there had been a “pretty significant amount” of seepage, estimated at about 10 gallons of flow per minute, from various locations.

The effluent on the bluffs is not a result of a spill or in an area where bacteria is expected, and there have been some reports that locals have observed white crystals identified as a result of the seepage for years. The cause is still unknown, but the waste is likely coming from nearby septic tanks since the homes on the mesa are not on a public sewage system, Jones said.

“We need to do analysis and testing to conclude that it’s a result of the septic tanks, but at the same time, there’s no other culprit that we could identify,” Jones told KQED. “There are a large number of septic tanks on top of the mesa, there is effluent coming out of the hillside, and we don’t know where else it could be coming from other than the septic tanks.”

Jones said she didn’t know when the county might have more concrete answers as to what is causing the seepage, how it plans to remediate the issue or when the beach might reopen. At last week’s community meeting, Marin County Chief Health Officer Lisa Santora said it’s possible the closure could extend past November.

“We’re really entering the assessment phase to identify what is the true scale and scope of the situation,” Santora said. “We know that the beach is a real critical element of our community here, but just as critical an element as the beach and access to the beach and the enjoyment you find from it, your health is our top priority.”

Health and safety code requires closing a beach on which visible sewage is found, Santora said during the meeting.

In the meantime, some businesses in Bolinas are bearing the brunt of the shutdown.

Nick Krieger, who runs Bolinas Surf Lessons, said he plans to close his business about six weeks early. Usually, he’ll give lessons through October and sometimes into the first few weeks of November, depending on the weather.

After the first weekend of the beach closure, though, he said business has just “fallen off.”

“It’s almost nonexistent,” Krieger said. “Usually, I have an online schedule, and I usually fill it with lessons people can book. And I just haven’t filled it up for people to even book because it’s not likely that they’re going to.”

During the first weekend of the partial closure, Krieger was able to give lessons on the eastern portion of Bolinas Beach, between Brighton Avenue and Wharf Road, where no waste was found and which remains open. That is actually the “main break” for surfers, he said, in the channel between Bolinas and Stinson Beach.

But those reservations were made before the closures were announced. Since then, Krieger hasn’t been booking new lessons and said there has been “almost nobody” on the beach apart from locals.

The uncertainty around what’s causing the seepage and when the beach could reopen is especially concerning, Krieger said, noting that even a broken sewer pipe would be easier to plan around.

“If it’s like, ‘We don’t know what this is, and we don’t know how long it’s been here, but now that we know we have to close the beach,’ it’s like, OK, this may not ever get resolved,” Krieger told KQED.

“It’s a little scary, honestly, having a business there,” he continued.

The Bolinas Community Public Utility District has confirmed that its water, which is piped in, is safe to drink, and Jones said the Community Development Agency is working on a plan to help locals test private wells on their property.

It appears the health risk is confined to the beach. There haven’t been any reports of illness related to the effluent, and water testing conducted along the beachfront found that bacteria levels did not exceed standards for water-contact recreation.

“If [people are] out in the ocean, it doesn’t appear that there’s a health risk there,” Jones said.