{"id":58361,"date":"2025-07-12T01:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T01:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/58361\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T01:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T01:42:11","slug":"odors-at-la-jolla-cove-are-pungent-as-ever-city-pauses-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/58361\/","title":{"rendered":"Odors at La Jolla Cove are pungent as ever; City pauses treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thousands<\/a>Thousands of birds flock to the bluffs near La Jolla Cove every summer. (Photo by Thomas Melville\/La Jolla Village News)<\/p>\n

LA JOLLA \u2013 Back in 2016, foul smells from wildlife excrement at La Jolla Cove prompted authorities to spray environmentally safe bacterial \u201codor eaters\u201d to cleanse the cliffs and stave off the stench.<\/p>\n

Nine years later, the noxious problem, caused by bird guano and pinniped waste during summer, has returned. In actuality, for those in \u201charm\u2019s way\u201d in La Jolla Village upwind, the stench never actually left.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spraying only happened a few times about three mayors ago,\u201d said Megan Heine, co-owner along with husband Dave, of Brockton Villa, 1235 Coast Blvd., on the cliffs above the Cove. She noted recently, \u201cThe odors, caused primarily by bird guano on the rocks, remain as their population has increased. Some days are better than others. At Brockton Villa, we use \u2018scent air\u2019 fans to mitigate any odor so people don\u2019t complain once they\u2019re in our restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Heine: \u201cWe haven\u2019t heard of any further effort by the city to address this. Meanwhile, the ongoing battle of pinniped versus people access (at the Cove) continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly a decade ago, the city\u2019s answer for foul fumes at the Cove was to employ an environmentally safe product, a foamy mixture of bacillus bacteria, described as microbial \u201cScrubbing Bubbles,\u201d to counteract the guano buildup from gulls and cormorants. The stench had become so bad it drew national attention and local outrage, especially from La Jolla restaurateurs and the La Jolla Village Merchants Association representing them.<\/p>\n

At that time, the city received a flurry of pitches for products and procedures, mostly \u201cbiologically based cleaners,\u201d from a multitude of sources offering alternative options for alleviating the offensive smell. Those options extended from proposals to power-wash the cliffs to installing spikes or tarps to bar wildlife from roosting on the rocks. One option went so far as to call for employing a natural predator \u2013 trained falcons \u2013 to scare the birds away.<\/p>\n

But there was a huge hurdle to be cleared by any product ultimately selected to curb the stench: It had to be environmentally safe to prevent runoff from cleansing the cliffs and contaminating the ocean below.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Blue Eagle, a San Rafael-based firm that uses a mix of bacillus bacteria to consume the bird droppings, was chosen as the best alternative for cleansing the Cove\u2019s rocks. The bacteria were selected for their safety and effectiveness in digesting bird droppings through a natural process, where organisms generate energy by breaking down food and releasing carbon dioxide and water.<\/p>\n

And it worked, at least partly, for a time, and while it lasted.<\/p>\n

But the city confirmed recently that time has long since passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city has long worked to address persistent odor concerns at the La Jolla bluffs, which are caused by natural accumulations of seabird and marine mammal waste,\u201d said Benny Cartwright, supervising city spokesperson. \u201cIn previous years, the city applied an organic, enzyme-based treatment derived from naturally occurring ocean bacteria to targeted areas as part of a successful odor mitigation strategy. The treatment uses beneficial microbes to accelerate the natural breakdown of bird and marine mammal waste, effectively reducing odors while posing no known risk to wildlife or water quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Cartwright pointed out that it ended in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of this treatment was paused following communications from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which requested additional information for further evaluation,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile those communications have since been addressed, the city continues to pursue the additional internal review and approvals to resume spraying in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny future application would continue to be guided by established best management practices, including avoidance of application during or near the presence of marine mammals using on-site biological monitoring, and implementation only under appropriate weather and tide conditions,\u201d Cartwright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next steps would depend on ongoing discussions with regulatory agencies, as well as internal assessments of environmental and operational considerations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of birds flock to the bluffs near La Jolla Cove every summer. (Photo by Thomas Melville\/La Jolla…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[42500,19528,42501,1582,276,2961,42502,224,5337,42503,29978,42504,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-58361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bird-poop","9":"tag-birds","10":"tag-brockton-villa","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-jolla-cove","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-odors","18":"tag-sea-lions","19":"tag-seals","20":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114837726495930064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}