When it rains, it pours — and flushes pollution straight into local waters.
Last winter’s wet, rainy season put a damper on water quality throughout Southern California, with fewer beaches making the “honor roll” list in Heal the Bay’s annual Beach Report Card, now in its 36th year.
And if you’re headed to the beach this Memorial Day, there’s one popular place you may want to steer clear of, with the area around the Santa Monica Pier once again landing on the dreaded “beach bummer” list.
The yearlong analysis, released just ahead of the busy beach holiday weekend, spotlights beaches that fared well in wet and dry conditions but also troubled stretches of coast that have chronic issues that can be hazardous to beachgoers’ health.
“At Heal the Bay, we believe a day at the beach or river should never make anyone sick,” Heal the Bay CEO Tracy Quinn said at a news conference on the sand in Santa Monica on Wednesday. “This year’s report tells a clear story: There is a strong correlation between rain, urbanization and pollution.”
The annual reports, Heal the Bay leaders say, also reveal broader statewide water quality trends tied to increased rainfall, urban runoff, aging stormwater infrastructure, and persistent pollution hotspots across both coastal and freshwater recreation areas.
The Beach Report Card analyzes more than 700 beaches along the West Coast, from Washington to Mexico, with 500 of them in California, where an estimated 100 million people visit the shore each year. The accompanying River Report Card, now in its eighth year, uses the same methods to rate 35 freshwater rivers, streams and lakes.
The report cards translate complex bacterial monitoring into simple A to F grades that people can easily understand, Quinn said.
A and B grades represent safe to swim, while C, D, and F grades indicate elevated levels of risk. The information is free, public and available on the Heal the Bay website, helping families check conditions before heading out to recreate, Quinn added.
“While these challenges are serious, there are simple steps people can take right now to reduce the risk of illness,” he said. “Avoid swimming for at least 72 hours after rainfall, stay away from storm drains, river outlets, and stagnant water.”
The honor roll
In California, 91% of its beaches earned A or B grades during the summer dry season, good news for beachgoers during sunny weather when most people dip into the ocean.
That means that from April 1 to Oct. 31 of last year, some 9 out of 10 beaches in the state were generally safe for recreation.
“This is encouraging news for the millions of people who visit California beaches each year to swim, surf, and enjoy the coast,” said Naomi Meurice, water quality data specialist and lead scientist behind this year’s Beach Report Card. “It also shows that clean water is achievable when stormwater pollution is limited. At the same time, these results tell us that there’s still important work to do.”
Throughout the state, 21 beaches, as well as 10 freshwater sites in the Los Angeles area, made this year’s honor roll, meaning they received A+ water-quality grades each week during the reporting period in both wet and dry conditions.
Orange County had several beaches land on the honor roll for consistently high marks in water quality, including Capistrano Beach and Dana Point Harbor in Dana Point, Huntington City Beach and Sunset Beach at Broadway, as well as Coral Cay Beach and Admiralty Drive Beach in Huntington Harbor. Laguna Beach’s Thousand Step Beach and Three Arch Bay also made the list.
In Orange County, 98% of beaches received an A or B grade, Meurice said.
“That’s really, really good,” she said. “Definitely some of the best water quality in the state.”
San Diego also touted several honor roll beaches. Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties each had one beach with honorable status. Bluff Cove in Palos Verdes Estates was the L.A.-area beach with consistently good-quality water.
By analyzing a full year’s worth of data, the annual report helps identify long-term trends, environmental conditions and persistent pollution sources that affect public health, Meurice said.
When it rains, the impact is obvious. Wet-weather grades last year declined statewide, with only 61% of beaches receiving A or B grades during wet weather compared to an average of 67%.
The water quality decline in the latest report compared to the previous year, when conditions were drier, indicates that in highly urbanized regions, such as Southern California, rainfall often means higher levels of bacteria in surface water, Meurice said.
When rain falls onto streets, parking lots, and rooftops, it picks up bacteria from a wide range of sources, including pet and wildlife waste, leaking sewer infrastructure or illegal dumping, Meurice said.
That bacteria pollution, along with trash, oil and other contaminants, flows through storm drains directly into the rivers and the ocean, Meurice said.
Fecal pollution is of particular concern because even a single exposure can result in illness, such as rashes, ear and upper respiratory infections and gastrointestinal illness.
The impact of the rainy winter that flushed trash to the ocean was apparent: Only 21 beaches earned honorable status across the state, down substantially from 62 beaches the year before, when 50% less rainfall was recorded.
Beach bummer
The Beach Report Card’s annual “beach bummer” list identifies the 10 beaches with the poorest summer dry grades.
And, for the 5th consecutive year, the Santa Monica Pier has ranked among California’s most polluted spots, highlighting persistent water quality challenges at one of the state’s most visited coastal destinations.
Despite the city and Heal the Bay forming a Santa Monica Pier Task Force, adding netting to deter birds, and taking other measures to improve the water quality, the root of the problem remains an enigma.
“After several years of improvement, the pier has returned to our ‘beach bummer’ list,” Quinn said, “and last year, the water beneath the pier ranked as the dirtiest in California.”
That should be a major concern, especially as an influx of visitors is expected during the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics, she noted.
Also, San Mateo County accounted for 6 out of 10 of this year’s bummer beaches, showing needed improvement in that region of Northern California.
“We need to invest in local strategies at chronic hotspots, when needed, like what we’re doing here with the Santa Monica Pier Task Force,” Quinn said. “Ultimately, cleaner water is achievable, but it requires sustained investment and coordinated action.”
In addition to beach trends, the Santa Monica-based environmental group has also, in recent years, started testing 35 freshwater recreation sites across Los Angeles County.
California still doesn’t have a consistent statewide system for monitoring and notifying the public about water quality in these freshwater sites, said Vincente Villasenor, water quality associate specialist with Heal the Bay.
“Inland communities deserve the same access to clear, timely water quality information as coastal communities,” he said. “This year’s River Report Card showed many of the same patterns as we observed at beaches, reminding us that the health of the coastal waters is directly connected to the health of our inland waterways.”
More people are using the Los Angeles River as a place to recreate, so keeping the waterway clean and clear of pollutants is important, he said.
But tests found high fecal indicator bacteria in the water, especially near urbanized areas in the lower section of the river.
In upper watershed areas, where land use transitions from open space to urban zones, scientists also observed greater short-term variability this year, likely linked to urban runoff and possible localized post-fire impacts from the 2025 Eaton fire.
After wildfires, there’s often less vegetation to slow and filter runoff, which can allow bacteria to grow.
The best water quality continues to test in upper watershed areas with limited development, such as the Malibu Creek and upper San Gabriel River, Villasenor said.
“These sites consistently perform well and show very low bacteria levels, but as you move downstream, the picture changes,” he said. “As watersheds become more urbanized, we see steadily increasing bacterial levels driven by dry weather urban runoff, highlighting the growing influence of surrounding land use.”
Two waterways — the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River — will soon be getting new technology to help with debris flowing down to the beach: Plans were recently announced for trash interceptor systems to be installed for both. While Heal the Bay officials said they have not taken a stand on the technology, they acknowledge more needs to be done.
“Reducing trash pollution before it enters our waterways is always a good thing,” Villasenor said. “Addressing those challenges will require long-term solutions like capturing and treating urban runoff, improving watershed infrastructure, expanding monitoring and public notification and preventing pollution at its source.”
