[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 9/24/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

September 24, 2007

 

4. Water Quality

 

STORMWATER RUNOFF:

Editorial: Storm water a challenge; Practical steps needed - Ventura County Star

 

SHIP CLEANUP:

Editorial: Mothball fleet: Suisun Bay cleanup costly, but worth it - Vallejo Times Herald

 

 

STORMWATER RUNOFF:

Editorial: Storm water a challenge; Practical steps needed

Ventura County Star – 9/23/07

 

Storm-water runoff isn't usually the stuff of headlines. But add a potential $400-a-year price tag for each of Ventura County's 330,000 or so households to reduce the trash and pollutants flowing through storm drains directly into our rivers, lakes and ocean and we expect people will pay attention.

 

For 35 years, Americans have concentrated on making our waterways and ocean cleaner through the federal 1972 Clean Water Act. The law has targeted traditional sources of pollution from factories and sewage facilities. In 1987, Congress started focusing on municipal storm-water runoff, but pollution levels at our local beaches are still too high.

 

Since Ventura County's storm-water permit has expired, it is the first county in California to face strict new regulations on keeping pollutants on city streets, yards and parking lots out of storm drains.

 

Cost estimates for some 75 new or additional proposed requirements range from a low of $60 million a year to a high of $140 million a year, with no additional government revenue to pay for them. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board's goal to make waterways healthier is laudable, but government must take practical, workable steps to achieve that aim, in cooperation with local governments. It should carefully consider the unintended consequences of unaffordable, punitive and untested new requirements.

 

Local government officials delivered that unified message Thursday at a meeting of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board in Ventura.

 

Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long and city managers were among nearly a dozen officials who told the board, which is responsible for issuing the permit, that they are committed to reducing storm-water pollution locally and to spending a reasonable amount of money to accomplish that goal. They stated concerns about a generic permit with standards based on such high-density areas as Los Angeles and Orange counties, which don't take into consideration Ventura County's agriculture and distinct topography.

 

They also cited the countywide focus on reducing sources of pollution as a more cost-effective approach than pouring millions of dollars into treating the effects.

 

Ventura City Manager Rick Cole wrote to The Star in an e-mail that the 10 cities and county are banding together, "working hard to find cost-effective ways to move forward. This is not the typical sky is falling' response from polluters screaming they can't afford to clean up the environment. This is everyone working together to find a practical way to clean up the environment."

 

Since 1992, the county of Ventura, the county Watershed Protection District and the 10 county cities have worked to reduce pollutants making their way into waterways, through the award-winning Ventura Countywide Stormwater Program. Storm-water runoff costs currently run about $13.5 million countywide. A fee on property owners of less than $10 a year per household raises about $3 million of that cost.

 

Unless there were a large fee increase, already strapped local governments would have to pay for an enhanced storm-water program by tapping existing budgets.

 

We think Supervisor Kathy Long has posed important questions for the LA Regional Water Quality Control Board to answer as it considers imposing its proposed regulations:

 

— Are the regulations reasonable and cost-effective?

 

— Is there a timeline for implementation?

 

— Are they consistent with other environmental regulations and policies Ventura County must comply with?

 

The LA Regional Water Quality Control Board has until March at the earliest to take up the regulations. It would be to everyone's benefit if they take the county of Ventura up on its offer to work with it to come up with a more affordable, but still effective way to keep our waterways and beaches clean. #

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/sep/23/storm-water-a-challenge/

 

 

SHIP CLEANUP:

Editorial: Mothball fleet: Suisun Bay cleanup costly, but worth it

Vallejo Times Herald – 9/24/07

 

Finally, the U.S. Maritime Administration seems to understand the seriousness of the problem posed by scores of decaying ships floating east of the Benicia Bridge.

 

For more than a year, the administration had thumbed its nose at the U.S. Coast Guard and state water regulators, who were concerned about the environmental dangers of the rotting ships in Suisun Bay waters and of transporting the moth-balled vessels to Texas for dismantling.

 

Recently, we learned that the administration, for the first time, is considering placing the ships in dry dock to clean them of metals and organic growth before they're towed out to sea. This would be a major step forward that offers a solution to the deadlock that threatens the environmental health of bay waters.

 

If the ships were cleaned while in the water, the work likely would be done at Maritime Administration docks in Alameda, where officials have grown concerned about possible pollution.

 

The dry dock cleaning can't happen soon enough. The federal government has stored ships in Suisun Bay since 1946. There are now 74 ships anchored there, 53 of which are slated to be towed to Texas, where they are to be cut up for scrap. But the vessels have been caught in a bureaucratic and environmental quagmire.

 

Leaving the ships rotting in Suisun Bay is not an option. An environmental assessment shows that 21 tons of paint have fallen from 40 ships, and 65 tons more threaten Bay waters.

 

So the problem is how to get the ships out. The Coast Guard barred the Maritime Administration from transporting the vessels without first cleaning the hulls of marine growth, such as seaweed and barnacles, that could be spread to areas where it is not native. But when one ship was cleaned in Richmond last year, sheets of decayed metals one-third of an inch thick also peeled off the hull.

 

The Maritime Administration earlier this year experimented in Virginia with a system in which the ship hulls were cleaned in the water with surrounding filters to capture sediment. But copper was discovered in the water after the cleaning, making it unlikely California regulators would consider such a method.

 

So, clearly, it's time to move the ships to dry dock for hull cleaning before they are transported. Yes, it will probably be more costly. But that's the price of six decades of neglect. Let's get on with it and clean up the mess before it gets any worse. #

http://www.timesheraldonline.com//ci_6984105?IADID=Search-www.timesheraldonline.com-www.timesheraldonline.com

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