Good news: Cali beaches are cleaner. Bad news: State money to monitor beaches is now gone, thanks to Schwarzenegger.

Heal the Beach’s annual beach report card (PDF) came out today — showing stellar marks for Cali beaches, those in LA County notwithstanding. LA Times summarizes the results:

Of the state’s 514 beaches, 91% received A or B grades, which mean excellent or very good water quality, according to the California Summer Beach Report Card….

Los Angeles County beaches received the lowest marks in the state, with nearly one in five beaches receiving F grades. Malibu’s famed Surfrider received a D. Long Beach had the most polluted beaches, according to the report. Nearly half its 25 monitored beaches received C to F.

We’ll need to work on that. Unfortunately, Schwarzenegger took away all state funding for beach monitoring. Heal the Bay predicts that the state may start raiding $35 million available via the Clean Beach Initiative — money that’s supposed to go toward beach cleanup, not monitoring.

The silver lining, if we can call it that: The federal government still gives us some monitoring money. If LA beaches are dirtier next year, will we even know it?

Update, 5/22/09: Santa Monica and Surfrider beaches get Fs

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