LOS ANGELES – Officials and environmentalists are criticizing a nonprofit group that ranks clean beaches, saying it cast doubt on shores that didn’t make its list only because beach managers refused to pay the organization’s evaluation fees.
The annual list issued last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Clean Beaches Council highlighted 53 beaches in 10 states – none on the West Coast. The group rates public safety, cleanliness and environmental quality of coastal areas.
The group’s founder and president, Walter McLeod, suggested to CNN last month that West Coast beaches didn’t make the list because they weren’t qualified.
“We toughened our criteria last year, which means that beaches have to build up to become certified,” McLeod said.
But California officials and environmentalists said the true reason West Coast beaches were missing was because they didn’t pay the group’s fees: $2,500 for each beach for the first year and $1,250 for yearly renewals. They complained McLeod’s comments weren’t based on firsthand knowledge and were meant to pressure beach cities into paying.
“It’s an effort to blackmail cities,” said Steve Aceti, executive director of the California Coastal Coalition, a beach advocacy group whose membership includes more than 40 cities and counties. “This campaign is designed to make cities feel threatened if they’re not on the list. It’s tantamount to a shakedown.”
McLeod denied ever trying to pressure cities to join the program by criticizing their beaches. But he allowed that some of his remarks may have been misleading.
“I probably may have mis-conveyed that it was quality criteria alone that caused California or Hawaii not to be in the program,” McLeod said. “If that was communicated, then that’s certainly not what we intended.”
McLeod said the fees pay for experts to review water quality data provided by local governments and to inspect the beaches. Not all beaches that apply qualify for listing, though he declined to list any that were rejected.
Other nonprofit organizations rate ocean water quality and beaches without charging. In California, environmental groups such as Surfrider and Heal the Bay produce their own report cards.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.