CREEK TEAM TEAKES ON ORANGE COUNTY OVER TOXIC CHEMICALS IN THE WATERWAYS
By: Carolanne Hunt
When people hear the words Orange County, there is an idea that comes from the name. Orange County has a certain reputation. There’s highly publicized tourist destinations, the US Surfing Open at Huntington Beach every year, Balboa Island, and beautiful walking trails that lead right to incredible coves. When people hear Orange County they think of coastal beaches and California Dreamin’.
Well, it has been a truly disheartening few months for Orange County residents who were blind sided to find out their county policy included dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of glyphosate directly into the waterways that run out to those very beaches they love and cherish so much. Doheny Beach, Newport Harbor, Huntington Beach, and Long Beach are all exit points of Orange County's natural river system that has been carrying far more than water. It is now known that these waters were carrying highly probable carcinogens in the form of herbicides and pesticides, primarily glyphosate, right out to the residents and wildlife who swim and play in this water every day. It was a blow to the community to realize not only has this been going on for over a decade, the public was never notified that this was the county’s policy at all. Absolutely nothing was being done about this, and no one was taking on the county to hold them accountable, until Creek Team.
Creek Team is a non profit grass roots organization dedicated to ending harmful herbicide and pesticide use in Orange County. Creek Team founder, Brent Linas, asked his city for answers. He then asked the county for answers. Yet no one responsible for managing these waterways was forthcoming on what was going on or could be done about it. He decided to start Creek Team as an instagram page and asked others in the community to join him to investigate. Bethany Nelms and Robert Beard were some of the first and strongest supporters of Creek Team. These 3 concerned residents really became a thorn in the County's side to get these answers. What they received was solid pushback in the early months of Creek Team.
They started digging to find out just how much nefarious behavior the county and state has been engaging in and how many conflicts of interest were present. What they ultimately uncovered were lies from the county, a deep network of big chemical influence, and unacceptable water management policy. Here is what Bethany Nelms of the Creek Team had to share.
“Creek Team started because Brent had noticed the vegetation was being killed off. He started the meetings with the County and ended up being ignored. He started Creek Team. I heard about it from another neighbor and jumped on and asked how I could help. Our original goal was to change the herbicide practices in one creek. We quickly realized it was a countywide problem and wanted to be able to address the overuse throughout Orange County. We are now broadening our scope in several capacities, realizing the breakdown in compliance in government agencies. Our goals, overall, are to be able to address environmental concerns, and perpetuate enforcement of good policy”.
Their fight to end glyphosate use and ecocide has not been an easy one. Far from it. When the first founding member of Creek Team, Brent, initially took this to the county he was treated with anything other than respect. In a conversation with Brent he expressed frustration in this treatment, claiming that when he approached the city council and board of supervisors at first, he was told that he did not have the scientific qualifications to challenge their authority. Despite doing his due diligence, bringing direct factual evidence, and simply being taken seriously on the merit as a concerned citizen alone, they did not see Brent’s concerns as credible. In order to combat the county’s clear ignorance Brent sought out to find a bio-chemist that did have the qualifications the county was looking for. This is how the Creek Team came to align with a new ally, “Science Rob”.
Rob immediately understood the obvious shutdown and silencing strategy the county was deploying on Brent. Rob himself reviewed the county’s testing data only to discover their sample testing was inadequate and that the county could not definitively say whether the waterways were actually safe for residents as their testing came back with an inconclusive result. The only acceptable result is a negative result, not an inconclusive one. A result of inconclusive means that more testing is needed to ensure there is no chemical hazard to the people.
The truth of the matter is that the general testing being done by the county is not sufficient to prove the waterways are safe. It was found there were gaps in testing where the county didn’t test San Juan Creek for years. Only 6 test sites out of the whole county were done when all of the Orange County waterways were being sprayed. In addition, if the results do not exceed a certain parameter then further testing isn’t required for a longer period of time. This essentially buys the county more time between testing. Residents, including science Rob, are saying this is not enough testing in terms of the amount of location samples and not often enough. All of this herbicide and pesticide runoff goes directly out to the beaches that people are swimming in, but the county’s jurisdiction for testing ends at the mouth of the creeks. Other agencies responsible for this testing could monitor the beaches and may have the capability to test, but unless they test for each specific chemical it is not being tested in the beach water at all. Herbicides and pesticides are not on the list of tested chemicals in beach water for health and safety control. Ultimately, the county has not conducted adequate testing and neither have the state agencies to ensure public safety in regards to mass amounts of herbicides and pesticides being applied directly in the waterways.
Even with the minimum testing that was done by the county, the bare minimum was being falsified. They had an exceedance but signed off on it anyway. At one city hall meeting to go over the county’s test results, the community was presented with falsified results from the testing samples by Orange County’s Environmental Resources Deputy Director Amanda Carr. This was called out by Rob with the correct inconclusive results being shown to the public. While it is not known if the presentation of falsified test results was intentional, the very real conflicts of interest do not lend confidence in the credibility of current county leadership. Thankfully, and sorry to rhyme here, Science Rob is on the job!
Upon realizing the county’s lack of initiative to properly test, Creek Team sought out to send their own samples to local labs to find out definitively. More pushback ensued. Out of the 9 local labs that Creek Team reached out to, all but one lab rejected their samples on the grounds of not wanting to jeopardize their county contracts as many of the local labs work side by side with Orange County Public Works (OCPW). Only one lab, Alchemist, rejected on the grounds of not having the capacity to test everything that was asked, but are still attempting to see what can be done to help. All other testing had to be sent out of state in order to be accepted by a lab that did not have a conflict of interest with the county. This is a costly process that came from Creek Team’s own fund. It does beg the question why non profits are needing to pay for the testing that the county itself should be doing.
The Orange County Environmental Resources Deputy Director Amanda Carr herself is on the board of the California Stormwater Quality Association (CASQA). She sits in an unelected position with OCPW, and OCPW also subcontracts to other CASQA members such as Dudek. CASQA has many members that sit on state waterboard agencies that work closely with construction, herbicide, and pesticide companies that directly benefit from less environmental regulation. It is showing that CASQA has done more to protect their personal interests by loosening the regulations that led to this outcome, instead of protecting water. While it is not yet known if any of these connections are inherently criminal, they are at least unethical at face value when a non-state agency like CASQA has such a heavy impact on the state and local water boards while simultaneously representing those with vested interests against water quality control. The people deserve to have control over their state water board, not lobbying groups who don’t represent their interests.
As of July 14th the Orange County Board of supervisors reversed their initial decision made in June to continue to spray glyphosate into Orange County waterways. This is primarily due to extensive backlash on the ruling and in light of the very serious Ladera Ranch controversy where multiple families have lost loved ones from a rare cancer called Ewing Sarcoma. A pilot program was adopted for the San Juan Creek and Trabuco Creek. No chemicals will be sprayed in the creeks until at least July 2027 and the first stage of this pilot is simply an observation phase. Creek Team sits on the committee that was created by the county to help manage these waterways. They will have a say in what and how things will be done along with other community groups such as OC Coast Keepers, Laguna Canyon Foundation, Surfrider, Toxic Free OC, and the Acjachemen Tribe Chairman. The goal for many of these groups is to see a complete change in management of a lifeless concrete storm drain to a restored riparian habitat that supports local wildlife, while being maintained with non toxic procedures.
Creek Team will be monitoring this pilot program very closely and is continuing the fight in more substantial ways as they have retained legal representation to ensure the county continues their promises to the public to move towards a non toxic and life oriented policy in Orange County waterways.
Anyone interested in learning more about Creek Team can check their website at Creekteam.org or follow them on Instagram at @creekteam_oc
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