City to Help Fund ‘Kiddie Beach’ Study

The city will contribute $50,000 to a county study of the future of “Kiddie Beach,” a county-owned stretch of shoreline plagued by pollution.

“While it’s a county beach, it’s still our problem too,” Oxnard City Councilman Dean Maulhardt said Monday.

“Kiddie Beach,” officially known as Channel Islands Beach Park, and nearby Hobie Beach are the only county beaches that have failed to meet state standards for bacteria levels, according to officials with Heal the Bay, an environmental group that conducts regular testing of Southern California beaches.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted last week to spend $118,000 to hire a water-quality expert to test the water and conduct a six-month study aimed at finding the source of contamination at the two beaches.

Larry Walker, a Thousand Oaks-based water quality expert, has been hired to perform tests that officials said can’t be done by city or county agencies.

The beach and park area were closed last September when it was discovered that weekly water samples were consistently tainted, according to the county’s environmental health department.