Point Reyes has seashore water issue.

Five waterways in the Point Reyes National Seashore were found to contain unsafe concentrations of bacteria — including up to 40 times the state health standards for E. coli at one site, according to recently published tests.

The environmental organization that funded the water quality tests says the results raise questions about whether the National Park Service is doing enough to curb runoff pollution from commercial beef cattle and dairy ranches operating within the seashore.

The findings come as the California Coastal Commission prepares to vote on April 22 on a controversial proposal to extend ranch leases to up to 20-year terms.

The water quality tests conducted in late January were funded by the Western Watersheds Project, which opposes continued ranching in the seashore and had previously filed litigation against the park service on the issue. The organization has submitted the test results to the coastal commission and is calling on the National Park Service to post public health notices at sites such as Kehoe Beach and Abbotts Lagoon.

“There are big impacts on a beautiful national park unit, and the park service seems to be looking the other way,” said Laura Cunningham, California director for the Western Watersheds Project.

Park officials say the historic ranches that have existed in the area for close to 200 years have made significant progress in recent decades to reduce runoff pollution. Fencing and other methods to keep cattle from waterways, manure control, the installation of on-site water sources and creek stabilization projects have led to major reductions in bacteria levels — in some areas by as much as 95%.

“We continue to implement best management practices happening in those watersheds since 2013,” Melanie Gunn, a seashore official, said of the sites tested by the Western Watershed Project. “Although we haven’t been monitoring, we continue to do the practices that we know improve the water quality over time and we will continue to do that.”

The park service says far more data is needed to draw conclusions on the conditions of the waterways.

The water quality tests on Jan. 27 and 28 were led by Berkeley-based engineer Douglas Lovell. They assessed South Kehoe Creek, Kehoe Lagoon, Ab

botts Lagoon, East Schooner Creek and the main stem of Schooner Creek. He found the following results:

• E. coli bacteria levels up to 40 times the state health standard at Kehoe Lagoon.

• Total fecal coliform bacteria up to five times the state health standard at South Kehoe Creek.

• Enterococci bacteria up to 300 times the state health standard at Kehoe Lagoon.

• High concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus that might lead to toxic phytoplankton and algal blooms.

The National Park Service had last monitored these waterways or nearby sites for E. coli bacteria between 2000 and 2013. A park analysis of these tests in 2020 found that bacteria concentrations at all 13 of its testing sites decreased with the use of improved pollution control methods on ranches, resulting in a sixfold increase in water samples meeting state health criteria.

Lovell said a review of the park service study and his own results show similar concentrations of E. coli, however.

“Things have not changed much since the early 2010s and today,” he said.

While Lovell said methods such as keeping cows from defecating in creeks and streams have been effective at significantly curbing bacterial contamination in park waters, further pollution control methods are unlikely to bring bacteria levels below state standards.

“They may be at a point of diminishing returns in respect to the historic actions they’ve taken,” Lovell said. “They’ve plucked the low-hanging fruit.”

The park service also did not assess enterococci bacteria or impacts of nutrient runoff related to algal and phytoplankton blooms in its 2013 assessment, he said.

The debate over water quality comes as the National Park Service works to finalize an updated plan that will determine how it manages the 24 ranches in the seashore and neighboring Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The two parks contain 28,000 acres of ranch land with 2,400 beef cattle and 3,325 dairy cows. Under the proposed General Management Plan Amendment, the park service proposes to extend ranching leases from fiveyear terms to up to 20-year terms. This would fulfill a promise made to ranchers by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in 2012, Gunn said.

By proposing to extend ranch leases without reducing the number of cattle, the park service would perpetuate the bacterial and nutrient pollution in park waters, Lovell said.

“The park service plans to maintain the status quo despite the evidence that the park service needs to start reducing those cattle impacts,” Lovell said. “It’s kind of not seeing the future clearly. Even a small step in the right direction would have been prudent.”

Park officials and other water quality monitors say two days’ worth of water quality tests does not fully represent the ongoing conditions. Long-term monitoring over several seasons needs to take place to draw more solid conclusions, they said.

The University of California Cooperative Extension Marin County has researched water quality and its relation to ranching activities in the seashore. David Lewis, the organization’s director, said the park’s efforts to curb contamination have been found to be effective from these studies. A 2019 study he led found a 95% reduction in fecal bacteria along 17 miles of Olema Creek and its tributaries between 1999 and 2017.

Noting that he had not fully reviewed Lovell’s study, Lewis said, “It takes a lot to confirm the condition of a stream and have a data set that lets you speak to what is and what isn’t causing things and how you can make improvements and manage any impacts.”

Arti Kundu, who heads the beach water quality testing program for Marin County Environmental Health Division, holds a similar view as Lewis.

“When we monitor this, it’s very important for us to monitor them on a regular basis every week so we know what we are actually comparing them to,” Kundu said. “It was just one snapshot.”

More frequent testing is exactly what Cunningham and other supporters are calling on the park service to do.

“We’d like to not be doing the park’s job for them of keeping water clean,” Cunningham said.

Deborah Moskowitz, director of the Mill Valley-based Resource Renewal Institute, said it’s alarming the park service hasn’t tested these sites in nearly a decade. The park service is “downplaying” the impacts of ranching impacts on both water quality and water supply, she said.

“A 2017 study by the Center for Biological Diversity shows that water quality at our National Seashore is among the worst in California,” she said. “As a public health professional, it’s inconceivable to me that the NPS would not be warning the public about the risks of exposure to dangerous pathogens in park waterways.”

The park service is required to perform water quality tests at other locations in the park such as the Tomales Bay watershed and Olema Creek, which runs into the bay, Gunn said. The park service is not required to survey the sites tested by the environmental group, however, Gunn said.

Marin County is required by state law to regularly monitor water quality at certain beaches and post notices if state health standards are exceeded. However, the park service is not held to these same requirements, Gunn said.

The park could look into setting up a water testing program at the sites assessed by Lovell, she said.

Six dairy ranches and beef cattle grazing operations within the Tomales Bay watershed are regulated by the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board. The dairy ranches are required to test surface waters during or directly after three major storm events per year to comply with their permit. Beef cattle grazing operations in the area are not required to perform annual water testing, according to Xavier Fernandez, the regional water board’s planning chief. However, grazing operations must submit annual reports and proof that they are implementing practices that protect water quality, similar to the dairy ranches, he said.

State inspectors periodically inspect ranches in the North Bay and Sonoma to ensure compliance, but they can’t get to all sites every year because of limited resources, Fernandez said.

Under the Point Reyes National Seashore’s proposed management plan for ranches, the water board would look to implement the same standards for all grazing activities within the park — not just those near Tomales Bay.

“We are committed to getting all grazing activities and confined animal facilities in line and we know there is a lot of concern,” he said. “And we’re committed to addressing the issues with our limited resources. We can’t be at every single confirmed animal facility or every grazing operation every year, but we do our best to get out to sites and respond to complaints.”