The breaks around Santa Monica and Venice are pretty empty right now. But Lloyd Ahlquist is determined to get out there, though the conditions are, even to the non-surfer, clearly garbage.
“It's windy AF, that’s what the weather is right now,” he says as he suits up in a Venice parking lot. He’s philosophical about it. “Conditions are not ideal for surfing, but they're ideal for being in the water and enjoying yourself.”
Since the Palisades Fire in January, a lot of surfers have chosen to stay out of the water because they just don’t know what’s going on under the waves. The fires released heavy metals and man-made organic chemicals into the burn area, and runoff from rains in late January and early February flushed those chemicals into the bay. It’s been an urgent question for various agencies as to just how polluted the water got — and, importantly, just how resilient the ocean is.
Ahlquist, a committed surfer and comedian known for the web series Epic Rap Battles of History, took a month off from the beach after the fires, during which he asked himself the question every surfer is asking right now — to paddle out, or not to paddle out?
“There comes a time when it's more unhealthy for me not to surf than it is for me to surf in gross water,” he says.
When he did start up again, he did what a lot of surfers did — commuted further up or down the coast, away from where the runoff and debris from the fires washed into the ocean near Malibu and Santa Monica. But today, he’s thrown caution to the fairly intense wind because — again like a lot of surfers — you sometimes have to do something that may be crazy in order to stay sane.
“For me, surfing is like a meditation type of a thing,” he says. “It just settles me and centers me. And I think maybe a lot of people feel the same way.”
A lot of people watching the water
Surfers and other beachgoers can’t be blamed for some confusion about water quality. There are two reasons for this.
For one, there are about two dozen groups — including government agencies and nonprofits — focusing on the health of the ocean, and all are studying slightly different things and issuing information in different ways. Second, scientists are careful people who aren’t likely to answer a question about ocean chemistry with a thumbs-up or down.
That said, the news is promising, according to Annelisa Moe at Heal the Bay, an environmental organization that among other things produces a Beach Report Card.
“Just anecdotally, from the experts that I've spoken to, everybody [is] in agreement that it's not as bad as we all expected it to be,” she says.
Heal the Bay just published a report on water quality from late January, right after what they call the “first flush” — meaning the first big rain that washes runoff into the sea. In other words, when the worst stuff would’ve been in the water.
“What we're seeing initially is that there is nothing in the water that's going to immediately cause harm, but some of the things that we are seeing … are categorized as carcinogens,” Moe says.
While these chemicals can increase the risk of cancer or chronic illness over time, she says, the risk is “likely very low for the recreational surfer or swimmer.”
As for the sand, it’s looking pretty good too. Moe says contamination from heavy metals and organic compounds is confined to the burn area, “but even so, across the board, they are still below health limits. … It's probably safe for recreational purposes, but they are elevated in the burn zone, and it's possible that what's in the water does wash up, so the wet sand might have slightly higher levels of contamination. But if the water is safe for recreation, then that wet sand will be as well.”
Heal the Bay does say that, for now, you should stay out of the water right near the burn area.
Per their report, while it’s looking pretty safe to be a surfer, and to be on the sand, it’s a different story for marine animals, who may be vulnerable to heavy metals accumulating in the food chain. There’s an even more definitive report coming in a few weeks that’ll give more detail, and more assurances.
But in the meantime, surfers like Lloyd Ahlquist may not be crazy for paddling out — depending on how lousy the waves are.
More: Rain after fires: Impact of toxic runoff on marine ecosystem