A large swath of the southern Orange County coast remained closed Sunday, five days after a major sewage spill.
Officials said they would reopen the O.C. beaches when water quality met state standards for two straight days.
An underground
sewage main in Rancho Santa Margarita ruptured Tuesday afternoon,
sending an estimated 500,000 gallons of raw sewage gushing into a creek
that emptied into the ocean at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point,
officials said Thursday.
Beaches from the breakwater at Dana Point Harbor to Capistrano Bay
Community Beach are closed.
The shoreline, which includes a
state campground and sheltered beaches favored by families with young
children, has a long history of bacterial-pollution problems, with some
stretches routinely receiving "Fs" in the annual report card on the health of state beaches by the nonprofit organization Heal the Bay.
— Shelby Grad