How Healthy is Santa Maria Creek?

The question of water quality in Santa Maria Creek has been raised by some Ramona Patch readers, in light of nearby old septic tank systems, winter flooding, water treatment facilities, homeless people living under some of the bridges and trash dumping by the general public.

Ramona Patch set out to find whether any agency monitors the quality of the creek.

A spokesperson for the County of San Diego indicated that there is no known monitoring of the creek by that agency.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) responded similarly. Two environmental scientists, Lillian Busse and Cynthia Gorham, told Patch that none of their records indicate any monitoring of the creek. They further indicated, however, that the creek is not known to be listed in databases of impaired water bodies.

Santa Maria Creek lies within the San Dieguito Hydrologic Unit, which encompasses the entire San Dieguito River watershed from the Volcan Mountains to the coast. A 2007 report on that hydrologic unit prepared for the RWQCB shows that the watershed has been generally impacted by multiple environmental pollutants and that pollution increases at lower elevations. The most prevalent pollutants were pesticides and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons — these are related to human degradation of the environment as well as natural sources such as fires. Samples of water and aquatic insects were taken from spots above and below Santa Maria Creek but not from the creek itself.

The report noted that, as of 2007, a comprehensive assessment of the ecological health of the watershed has not been conducted. It noted that the sampling amount done for the report was small. Overall, the conclusion was that the entire watershed is in "moderately poor" health in terms of pollutants that would affect aquatic life.

Gorham indicated to Patch by phone that the reason for the lack of assessment is due to the fact that it is extremely labor intensive.

However, she stated by email that if anyone is interested in trying to set up a volunteer monitoring station for Santa Maria Creek, they should contact the volunteer coordinator at the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento.  His name is Erick Burres. His e-mail is eburres@waterboards.ca.gov and his phone number is 213-576-6788. Gorham wrote that he can advise how to get trained and how to get a sampling kit.  

"We do take our volunteer monitoring data seriously," she wrote. "We have used it to find sewage line leaks and other sources of pollution and to elevate our water management priorities. Some of us in this office are involved in various volunteer monitoring activities. A good source of water quality information is the San Diego Coastkeeper website, or State EPA website with it's GIS Navigator Tool http://gisnavigator.epanet.ca.gov/ .

To bear credence to the potential pollution in Santa Maria Creek, collected nearly 1,200 pounds of trash from the creek during a recent cleanup sponsored by I Love a Clean San Diego.

Volunteers broke into groups to focus on Ramona Community Park and bridges at 7th Street, 10th Street and Montecito Street, according to our Manes and Tales columnist, Karen Carlson, who helped. They pulled 12 shopping carts out from under the Montecito Street bridge. Trash included plastic bags, food wrappers, clothing items and beverage containers. Hazardous items such as a DVD player and an empty medicine bottle were also collected. There were a couple of bicycle frames pulled out from the Montecito area. The most unusual item removed was a “Vacancy” sign.

Special thanks to for allowing volunteers' trucks to dump the trash at the transfer station.

Karen Carlson contributed to this report.