North Mission Bay Under Quarantine

Heavy runoff from the week’s rains forced San Diego County health authorities Wednesday to quarantine the northern half of Mission Bay after high bacterial counts were recorded near Sail Bay and Santa Barbara Cove.

Ruth Covill, a spokeswoman for the county Department of Health Services, said the closure is unrelated to sewage spills off Point Loma and at the mouth of the Tijuana River, which have combined to close 20 miles of coastline from the border to Ocean Beach.

Heavy rains alone can sometimes force bacterial counts to rise, health officials said.

Covill said the counts of fecal coliform bacteria in Mission Bay were as high as 16,000 per 100 milliliters of water Wednesday afternoon, or 16 times the legal limit. A count of 1,000 per 100 milliliters is the limit used by health officials.

In another development, Covill said a spill occurred late Wednesday in Alpine, when a broken pipe sent 7,000 gallons of raw sewage washing into Alpine Creek.

Although the creek empties into the El Capitan Reservoir, Covill said, drinking water “should not be affected. Even so, we will increase testing in the reservoir to determine bacterial counts.”