As Brent Linas kept up his runs alongside the San Juan Creek between Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano, he noticed abrupt changes in the streambed.
“I’d see the creek and it was alive,” said Linas, noticing all kinds of grasses and wildlife while he ran along the concrete edges of the channel.
“Then it was dead,” he said.
Solving the riddle of why the streambed would die off periodically got him corresponding with county officials, which soon led him to figure out it was the herbicides that are sprayed alongside the creek, which dumps into the nearby shores of Doheny State Beach.
That prompted Linas to file a mountain of public records requests to county officials – all publicly cataloged on Instagram – to figure out why.
The efforts of this rising coalition of concerned residents prompted Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley to sponsor a public meeting on the issue on Monday night, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the OC Sailing and Event Center near the area called Baby Beach in Dana Point Harbor.
“We set up this town hall so we could address the public on all these things,” Foley told me, noting she’s spent time getting educated on OC waterways because of the resident outreach and will have every relevant agency at Monday’s public meeting.
“I don’t want chemicals more than anyone,” Foley added.
She credited residents for bringing attention to the issue, pushing local officials to act.
“It’s what I love about local government.”
Despite the Monday meeting, Linas said he’s become frustrated with the intransigence of county staff on the issue and his inability to meet directly with Foley – who says she couldn’t meet with him in recent months amid tending to her father who recently died.
After publication, a Foley spokeswoman said they have attempted to meet with Linas, “giving him time to meet with Foley weeks ago but he has yet to respond.”
Linas responded by noting, “I didn’t respond because we felt at that point, our obligation was to inform the public. They had their chance to work with us and they made it clear they didn’t want to,” noting that Foley’s staff only offered a 20-minute meeting. “We felt it was a disingenuous offer only made after we went public.”
“I emailed her on Tuesday, saying we should meet. They have yet to respond,” Linas said.
According to public documents forwarded by Linas – whose coalition earlier this month formed into the OC Creek Team – county officials argue the herbicide usage by the local flood control district is used to control unwanted vegetation, which can impede storm and urban runoff, from growing in the flood control facilities.
Yet Linas, 41, a former Navy special operations officer, who grew up in Orange County and moved back in 2022, contrasts that approach with what he saw in San Diego County where the waterways are allowed to remain in a more natural state.
“San Diego has done this incredible job of building an ecosystem,” Linas said. “That’s when I noticed the difference.”
He and a rising coalition of local residents are ringing alarm bells on the use of such herbicides in the local creeks that flow directly into Doheny State Beach in Dana Point.
Their yearlong effort has netted a lot of tension in trying to get public bureaucrats to think differently about how to manage Orange County waterways.
What they’ve learned, they say, should be deeply concerning to all OC residents who live near waterways such as the Santa Ana River.
I first read about the issue from Jeff Pearlman’s Truth OC, where Creek Team organizers laid out their argument.
There, organizers point to an Army Corps of Engineers report that raised questions about the county’s course of action in the San Juan Flood control channel to remove foliage.
Linas notes the OC Creek Team has met with OC Public Works to change how the creeks are managed by the local flood control district with no luck.
Foley told me the Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t allow vegetation in the creeks, adding that county public works officials are doing a study on how to add vegetation to certain areas of the channel.
She also noted publicly this past week at the county supervisor’s regularly scheduled public meeting that there had been some issues last year with contractors using improper herbicides in the channels, which prompted an investigation and action by county officials.
“I did make one change … we no longer use glyphosate (the active ingredient in the controversial weed killer Round Up) in San Juan and Trabuco Creeks,” Foley said.
But Linas said county officials are still using a host of other herbicides that prompt concern.
Organizers have launched a petition drive on Change.org to Stop Toxic Herbicide Spraying in San Juan Creek and Orange County Waterways.
