Ash To Action: Heal The Bay’s Post-Fire Water Quality Investigation

Tuesday, March 25, 2025
5:00pm – 6:00pm
Hosted Online via Zoom Webinar

Join us for this upcoming webinar to learn more about the critical work that Heal the Bay and its academic partners are doing to protect the environment and monitor water quality in Santa Monica Bay.

Recent wildfires in Los Angeles that started on January 07, 2025, have impacted water quality in Santa Monica Bay. To understand the extent of these water quality impacts, Heal the Bay looked for contaminants that are likely to be mobilized after a wildfire and that pose a risk to human and ecological health when concentrations are elevated; this includes heavy metals, PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), nutrients, bacteria, and solids that decrease water clarity. Right now, Heal the Bay has data that their staff collected for bacteria and water clarity (referred to as “turbidity”), which have faster processing times and which we can test on-site in the Heal the Bay lab, while other contaminant samples were sent to a contracted lab to process.

A day at the beach should never make anyone sick. Heal the Bay is dedicated to protecting public health by sharing water quality information, and they remain concerned about the potential risks associated with post-fire contamination in ocean water and sand. Additionally, hazardous debris, such as nails and pipes, continues to wash ashore, posing a physical risk to beachgoers.