“Mini Lake” Forms at Will Rogers Beach

Channel water that flowed onto Will Rogers State Beach to form a “mini lake” on Monday

Photo: Courtesy of Sharon Kilbride

By Laurel Busby

News & Information Editor

On Monday, water flowed out of the Santa Monica Channel onto Will Rogers State Beach forming a “mini lake,” according to The Canyon Alliance board member Sharon Kilbride.

“It was taking over the entire beach,” Kilbride said. “It was insane. I’d never seen it like that.”

She reached out to L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s office and the L.A. County Department of Beaches & Harbors via email to alert them to the problem.

“Residents and myself have concerns about the water coming from Santa Monica Canyon,” Kilbride wrote. “Stagnant water is pooling under the bridge and folks are concerned on bacteria, growth, and wildlife concerns of toxins in the stagnant water.”

She also asked the officials why the water exiting the channel was not being allowed to flow into the ocean.

In a string of responses from officials, Kilbride was first told by John Carey Skinner of Beaches & Harbors, “Per conversation with the flood control team who recently replaced the bike path and renovated the mouth of the channel, it appears there may be a malfunctioning dam further up the channel that needs to inspected/repaired. During dry weather, the flow that comes down that channel should be diverted into a sewer for treatment by LA City Sanitation, it shouldn’t be flowing out onto the beach unless we have a rain event, in which case the rainwater itself would carve a path to the ocean.”

On Monday Kilbride noticed that the barrier that diverts water to Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant was being repaired after being out of commission for a few days, but by Tuesday morning the repairs seem to have been completed and channel water was again being diverted to the plant.

A closeup of the dirty water on Will Rogers State Beach. Photo: Courtesy of Sharon Kilbride

In addition, the mini lake had mostly drained by Tuesday morning, which Skinner told Kilbride in a follow-up email might be due to high tides.

Kilbride reported that a strong stench had arisen from the dirty water, and unfortunately on Wednesday, a smaller and still smelly version of the standing water remained because it had no path through the sand to wash into the ocean.

“It's a lot smaller version, but here we have stagnating water that can't go anywhere,” Kilbride said. “Is that water just going to sit there and evaporate? Maybe. I don't know.”

Beaches & Harbors employees were raking the sand with big machinery on Wednesday .

“It smelled really terrible,” said Kilbride, who bikes along the beach each day. “It was awful.”

Skinner told her that he was working to address the problem.

“We’re talking to L.A. City Sanitation about the matter to ensure all the relevant agencies are in the loop and to hopefully minimize the likelihood this happens again anytime soon,” he said.