More Fish, Cleaner Water ... In Santa Monica Bay, ‘Life Is Good’

Chugging out of the Redondo Beach harbor well before dawn, the Sea Spray, 65 feet long, was packed to the gills with people chattering in intense excitement. Their wish: fish. The dish: the best “bite” in years in Santa Monica Bay.

As the sturdy craft lumbered along, the huge industrial landmarks dotting the bay receded into the distance: the Hyperion sewage treatment facility, the Chevron refinery, the Southern California Edison generating plants.

Skipper Jeff DeBuys steered to one of his favorite spots and dropped anchor. Nearly 50 fishing lines shot out into the sparkling green sea. Zing! Not even two minutes later, Jack Hsu, a 36-year-old Hacienda Heights engineer, roared out a primitive battle cry as silvery line whizzed from his pole.

The fish fought gamely. But Hsu reeled it in, a fat, 15-pound yellowtail, and shouted with glee: “Sashimi!”

Santa Monica Bay is swimming this year with fish, particularly with exotic game fish such as barracuda, dorado, bonita, bluefin tuna and yellowtail.

Experienced anglers say the fishing is the best in at least 15 years. Some proclaim it’s the best in a generation or more. “It’s just been phenomenal,” said Philip Friedman, who runs the Torrance-based 976-TUNA fishing hotline.

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The arrival of so many game fish in the bay is clearly an oceanographic anomaly tied to the condition known as El Nino, experts said. Yet the fish have stayed--a clear sign that the bay water is clean enough and there is enough food, primarily baitfish such as sardines, to keep them here.

For those who still consider the bay a cesspool, who wouldn’t even on a dare eat a fish taken from it, experts say water conditions have improved over the last decade.

“From the standpoint of marine life in the bay, conditions are markedly improved,” said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay, the Santa Monica-based environmental group.

Yet environmentalists, marine biologists and veteran dockhands caution that considerable work remains, primarily protection from storm-drain run-off and the cleanup of historical accumulations underwater of the pesticide DDT.

Unlike bottom-feeding fish that may pick at DDT-laden sediment and are decidedly off limits for dinner--for instance, the white croaker--game fish prey on smaller fish, not off the bottom.

They are treats to eat, said Gold and others.

“If anyone wants to drop any by at my house, I’d be glad to give them my address,” Gold said. “Luckily, some of my friends have been dropping off some yellowtail.”

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Along with nature, which has provided warmer water, grand-scale cleanup and protection programs have meant cleaner water in the bay, experts said. In addition, sportfishing has been enhanced--for some species--by the absence since 1994 of gill-net fishing in near-coast waters.

Among the massive cleanup efforts: the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, approved in 1995.

As part of the project, rules took effect last year that are designed to reduce the county’s largest source of pollution, the toxic muck--pesticides, grease, oil and waste--that spills into storm drains. At the same time, a campaign was launched to educate the public about the dangers of dumping into drains.

This summer, the water in the bay has been cleaner in part because last year’s dry winter meant less gunk ran out of storm drains.

However, the rains yet to come this winter will wash a toxic soup into the water, making the water quality hazardous and beaches “look like a landfill,” Gold said.

But, in the water, the hazard is temporary, he and others said.

“Pollution is not keeping the [game fish] out of the bay,” said Dan Pondella, an Occidental College marine biologist and director of the Vantuna Research Group, which has monitored fish populations in the bay since the 1970s.

Toxicity, he and others said, is typically evident in underwater sediment and in bottom-feeding fish such as the white croaker, also known as the kingfish.

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Commercial catch of the white croaker has been illegal since 1990 in the near-shore waters of the Palos Verdes shelf, where about 100 tons of DDT sprawls across an area roughly the size of the city of Pasadena.

In June, a study released by Heal the Bay found that contaminated white croaker was still for sale in Los Angeles and Orange County markets; 84% of 132 samples exceeded the amount of DDT that state health officials say poses an acceptable cancer risk. The worst of the fish were too polluted to be used legally as landfill.

Most of the white croaker were probably caught off the Palos Verdes shelf or Los Angeles Harbor in or near the state’s “no-take” zone. In releasing the report, Gold said the rule is poorly enforced.

It’s that kind of horror story that makes it so hard for some environmentalists, scientists and fishers to convince others that the bay is actually showing signs of health.

According to the county’s Department of Health Services, there were 12 beach closures in 1987; so far in 1997, there have been only two, and one of those, on Jan. 30, was due not to the typical cause, a sewage pumping station malfunction, but to a landslide that caused a break in a sewer line.

Another sign: Toxic metals discharges from local waste water treatment plants, including the Hyperion plant, decreased 80% to 90% from 1982 to 1994, according to the Restoration Project and the Westminster-based Southern California Coastal Waters Research Project.

Other signs include significant kelp growth in test beds and a resurgence in the bay’s resident sea lion population, from about 150 animals a decade ago to more than 700, according to Terry Tamminen, who runs the environmental group Santa Monica BayKeeper.

Tamminen, like many others, emphasized that much work remains. However, he said, “there is evidence that things are getting better.”

Karen Caesar, a Restoration Project spokeswoman, added: “There is more than just a glimmer of hope for the bay.”

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For instance, the “bite,” as anglers call it, began in earnest in the spring. There has been almost no letup since.

The fish arrived from Mexico, driven north by a complex mix of climate and ocean forces tied to a potent El Nino in the equatorial Pacific, according to Tim Barnett, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.

In June, the Easy Reader, a weekly newspaper in the South Bay, began reporting big fish hauls from the Redondo pier. Last month, the tales became whoppers: One boat captain, the paper reported, gleefully “worked overtime to filet one of the 162 yellowtail” caught that day.

“It’s like they say it was in the 1930s,” said Eric Hobday, 31, the Sea Spray’s veteran deckhand. “The bass are biting. The yellowtail are biting. The barracuda--biting.”

Bill Beebe, 70, who has been writing outdoors columns for area newspapers for 45 years, said it’s not quite like it used to be in the old days--though he did say that it is “better than it has been.”

Beebe said he recalls fishing 50 years ago for halibut in the morning, then albacore tuna in the afternoon. Forty years ago, he said, he could catch 100 or more white sea bass in a single night.

“I can tell you, this doesn’t hold a candle to that,” he said.

Nonetheless, it’s pretty darn good. One day’s catch on the Sea Spray totaled 26 yellowtail, 57 barracuda, 35 bass and 11 bonita. “We caught 26 but we probably lost 50,” skipper DeBuys said. “Fish running into rocks. Wily fish.”

As the boat rocked in the harbor, deckhand Hobday cleaned Hsu’s decidedly unwily fish, then the nine that Hsu’s buddy, Royden Eu, 34, a Rowland Heights stockbroker, had reeled in--four yellowtail, two barracuda, two bonita and a bass.

Soy sauce and wasabi for the yellowtail, green onions and a steaming pot for the other fish, Eu proclaimed.

“Life is good!” someone called out from the docks.

Hsu responded with a thumbs-up sign and a big smile. He said, “Very good! Very good fish!”