Steve Halsted and other residents of the posh Rincon community that straddles the north county line dread the rain.

That's when they can't flush the toilets or do an extra load of laundry because their septic tanks have flooded.

Surfers who scale the waves at the world-famous surf spot also dread the wet season. That's when they get sick from water polluted with human bacteria.

"It's a shame," Halsted said. "These are houses that are worth quite a bit and should have a reliable sewer system. The public and surfers are concerned, too, because we're polluting the ocean. We'd like to remove that cloud, too."

On Tuesday, a small procedural step was taken in the decade-long effort to clean up the Rincon waters. The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution approving a plan to hook 72 homes and an empty parcel on the Ventura side of Rincon to the Carpinteria Sanitary District's sewer system.

That resolution, a formality required by state law, clears the way for the special district to redraw its boundaries and hold an election. A similar resolution is pending before the Santa Barbara County supervisors.

Ballots will be sent to Rincon residents who will vote on whether to join the district and pay an assessment for the sewer.

That fee will run about $360 a month — the highest sewer rate in the county.

"It's a significant amount, but this is an affluent community that can afford to pay for this improvement," said Craig Murray, general manager of the Carpinteria district.

Homeowners will have the option of paying $80,000 in cash up front or paying by the month. Forming the assessment district allows the sanitary district to sell bonds to finance the $6 million project, dubbed South Coast Beach Communities Septic to Sewer Project.

Murray said he believes residents will overwhelmingly vote to tax themselves for the new system. A simple majority vote is needed.

"They came to us in 1998 with the idea, and recent surveys we've done show most homeowners want this move," he said.

Halsted said a poll of residents done in 2001 by the homeowners association, of which he is vice president, showed 73 percent approved the switch.

But several residents have opposed the plan aggressively and have sued several times. Doug White and others don't believe septic tank leakage is causing the contamination.

"From the outset this process has been based more on supposition than on fact," White wrote in response to the project's Environmental Impact Report finalized in 2006. "The goal of improving water quality has remained an area of controversy."

But recent testing using DNA and other methods show human bacteria in the water, Murray said.

Since January this year, the beach has been closed seven times by the county Environmental Health Department, putting it at the top of the list along with Kiddie Beach in Oxnard. Regular monitoring of water quality required by legislation gave waters at the Rincon Creek mouth an F for poor water quality.

Surfer organizations have been fighting to improve the Rincon water quality since the early 1990s, said Paul Jenkin, environmental director of the county chapter of Surfriders Foundation.

"On a good day, 100 surfers are out on the water," Jenkin said. "People are getting sick."