Spring 2026 Report Describes Bacterial Levels as ‘Variable’; Surfers Describe Them as ‘Something We Don’t Discuss Pre-Paddle’

From Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

SAN CLEMENTE, CA — The Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Region released its spring 2026 water quality report for Southern California surf breaks this week, confirming that several iconic sites continue to receive grades that federal scientists describe as “variable” and surfers describe as “something we try not to think about right before paddling out.”

The report, which grades coastal water quality based on bacterial contamination levels measured after rain events, found that the majority of Southern California’s most surfed breaks are clean under normal dry conditions but experience significant degradation within 72 hours of rainfall, when stormwater runoff carries the specific cocktail of urban debris that Southern California’s storm drain system was designed in the 1950s to deliver directly and efficiently to the ocean.

The Trestles Situation

Trestles and Lowers, the adjacent San Clemente breaks that have hosted major surf competitions for decades, received a “Good” rating for dry weather conditions and a “Caution” rating for the 72-hour post-rain window, which the EPA characterized as “improved from recent years” and which the surfers who competed at the 2025 Pro there described as “something the announcer never mentions during the broadcast.”

“The wave quality is genuinely excellent,” said Reef Delacroix, 31, a competitive surfer from Oceanside. “The water quality after it rains is a conversation the surfing industry has decided to have very quietly and mostly among itself.”

Delacroix was paddling out. It had rained the previous day.

What Goes Into the Ocean When It Rains

Southern California’s storm drain system collects runoff from roads, parking lots, and developed surfaces and channels it, untreated, to the ocean through outfall pipes located near most of the region’s prime surf breaks. The contents of this runoff include: motor oil, pet waste, pesticides, and the specific residue of a region that contains 13 million people, their vehicles, their lawns, and their decision to live in a semi-arid climate that requires extensive irrigation and produces significant runoff when it does rain.

The Surfrider Foundation’s Clean Water campaign has been documenting this dynamic since 1992. The storm drain system’s fundamental design has not changed since the 1950s. The math on this situation is available to anyone who looks at it, which not everyone prefers to do.

The Post-Rain 72-Hour Rule

Experienced Southern California surfers operate by an informal 72-hour rule: don’t surf within three days of significant rain. The rule has scientific basis. Its adoption rate among the surfing population is limited by the fact that post-rain conditions frequently coincide with improved swell, placing surfers in the specific position of facing excellent waves in questionable water. The decision they make in this situation has been studied by researchers who describe it as “the triumph of swell over epidemiology.”

What Actually Helps

Water quality improvements at Southern California surf breaks have historically come from: updated storm drain systems, construction of dry weather flow capture facilities, and political pressure from beach communities willing to fund infrastructure upgrades rather than surfing in their own runoff. These improvements are ongoing, slow, and significantly less exciting than a good swell, which is why they receive less attention. The EPA report recommends continued investment. The surfers recommend the same, ideally timed so that it is complete before the next rain.

More environmental surf news: NewsThump.

The water quality issue at Southern California surf breaks is also a climate story in ways that the standard water quality coverage does not fully convey. As Southern California’s precipitation patterns change under climate warming — more intense rainfall events after longer dry periods — the storm drain system’s single-event contamination problem becomes more acute: the rain events produce larger runoff volumes carrying more concentrated contamination from longer accumulation periods, delivered to the ocean in shorter windows. The post-rain 72-hour rule, which was calibrated to historical rainfall patterns, may need revision as those patterns change. Surfrider Foundation’s water quality monitoring program, which has been documenting this for three decades, is one of the most consistent environmental datasets in California coastal science. The data trend is not reassuring. The waves are still good two days after it rains. This creates the decision that surfers have always made and will continue to make.

The Southern California surf community continues to absorb, adapt, and carry on — through mediocre swells, regulatory frameworks, shark closures, parking apps, and wave pool openings — with the specific equanimity of people who have chosen to base a significant portion of their identity on an activity that the ocean controls and they do not. The ocean does not read the legislation, check the parking app, or acknowledge the renaissance. It produces what it produces. The surfers show up early. This has always been the arrangement and neither party has proposed changing it. The session ends. The parking lot empties. The ocean continues producing what it produces. Tomorrow the same surfers will check the same apps and make the same calculation about whether it is worth going. It is always worth going. This has always been true and the current forecast does not change it. The US Open of Surfing is many things to many people. To the competitive surfers it is a major professional event with significant prize money and ranking points. To the city it is economic activity and brand reinforcement. To the locals it is the week that PCH becomes undriveable. To the television audience it is two hours of excellent surfing in conditions that are whatever they are. All of these are accurate and none of them is complete. The complete picture includes all of them simultaneously, which is what makes the event interesting year after year regardless of the wave conditions it receives.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/