[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 5/29/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

May 29, 2008

 

4. Water Quality –

 

 

Malibu violating beach bacteria limits

Malibu Times – 5/28/08
By Vicky Shere / Special to the Malibu Times

Heal the Bay's 18th annual Report Card for California Beaches had alarming, bad and good news for Malibu. The report, covering water quality from April 1 of last year to March 31 of this year, was released last week on Wednesday during a press conference at the Santa Monica Pier.

In alarming news, the city is one of 20 municipalities along with the county to receive a Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, or RWQCB, notice threatening tens of thousands of dollars in daily fines.

In bad news, Puerco Beach landed on Heal the Bay's list of California's 10 most polluted beaches for the third year in a row.

The good news is that Southern California's historic drought last year resulted in stretches of very good to excellent summer water quality in a stretch of beach from Leo Carrillo to Topanga, with the exception of the Marie Canyon drain at Puerco Beach.

Puerco is the only Malibu beach on the environmental watchdog's "Top 10 Beach Bummers" list. The list of worst beaches has the Marie Canyon storm drain, which empties on the beach adjacent to Malibu Colony, as No. 5, down from No. 3 last year and No. 1 in 2005-06.

Paradise Cove received an F and Escondido Creek and Surfrider Beach received Cs in the year-round dry weather category.

The RWQCB notice was sent on the same day the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Santa Monica Baykeeper filed a lawsuit against the city of Malibu, alleging pollution of its watershed. The environmental groups filed a separate suit against the county. While the lawsuits filed March 3 allege violation of rules added to the federal Clean Water Act in 1991, the RWQCB notice alleges violations of the California Water Code.

Joint responsibility

The city is working with various parties to address beach water quality, interviews with officials revealed.

"We've been pretty proactive," Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich said last Thursday. "We've committed $50 million, almost twice the size of our budget, toward various pollution cleanup projects."

She ticked off action such as the city's 2006 purchase of Legacy Park and the proposal for it to be part of the city's storm water treatment program, the 2007 completion of the Civic Center storm water treatment plant, the proposal for a wastewater treatment plant in the Civic Center area and development of storm water treatment at Paradise Cove.

Last year's fires in Malibu clogged pumps at the county's treatment facility on Malibu Road, accounting for the poor showing at Puerco Beach, Heal the Bay President Mark Gold said.

Once those pumps are replaced next month, "you should see an A grade at that beach every day," said Mark Pestrella, county assistant deputy director of public works, who is lending technical support for the design of Legacy Park.

Gold, who also serves on the Legacy Park technical advisory committee, gave the city high marks for its participation, along with Santa Monica Baykeeper and the landowner, in getting a $1 million grant to replace a storm water treatment facility at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. That public/private partnership when the city is impacted by problems of landowners is a model, Gold said.

In what might be an interesting note to some observers, while the Santa Monica Baykeeper is a plaintiff in the federal lawsuits against the city and county, former Baykeeper Executive Director Tracy Egoscue is now the executive officer at the RWQCB. In another quirk of fate, Steve Dahlberg, one of the Baykeeper's directors, according to the nonprofit's Web site, is chief financial officer of The Kissel Co., owner of the Paradise Cove mobile home park. The mobile home park's on-site wastewater treatment facility has been a "blatant source of pollution" for nearly a decade, the Beach Report Card states.

Dahlberg told The Malibu Times last week that he has been working monthly with the RWQCB to correct the problem. Most of the system is operational, Dahlberg said.

Mission to clean the Malibu watershed

The city has partnered with the county and local agencies to identify and monitor pollution in the Malibu, Escondido and Ramirez creeks flowing to the ocean, City Manager Jim Thorsen said.

The city is also participating in educational outreach such as the June 10 public workshop on Santa Monica Bay water quality hosted by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. The workshop takes place from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District Headquarters, located at 4232 Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas.#

http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2008/05/28/news/news1.txt