[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS -WATER QUALITY-2/13/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

February 13, 2009

 

4. Water Quality –

 

Water Board declares 26 Bay Area waterways 'trash-impaired'

The San Jose Mercury News

 

Discharge violations cost city dearly

The San Diego Union Tribune

 

Regulators under fire over chemical plume cleanup

Postponements go back 20 years

The San Diego Union Tribune

 

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Water Board declares 26 Bay Area waterways 'trash-impaired'

The San Jose Mercury News – 2/11/09

By Hadley Leggett

 

Fed up with Styrofoam cups, cigarette butts and plastic grocery bags clogging Bay Area waterways, a regional board on Wednesday declared 26 areas "trash-impaired," in violation of the federal Clean Water Act.

 

Pending final approval by the federal government, the decision by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board will force cities and counties, including San Jose and Santa Clara County, to institute multimillion-dollar cleanup plans or face hefty fines.

 

"The trash problem has been understood and visible for decades," said David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, an environmental advocacy group that lobbied for the new listing. "But actions have not been taken to reduce the trash, so there have to be tougher regulations."

 

Although the water board voted 6-0 to list the creeks as "trash-impaired," some jurisdictions questioned the decision and worried about the cost of complying with the new regulations.

 

The designation "triggers all kinds of reports that require a lot of money and don't necessarily solve the problem," said Monday Lariz, executive director of the Stevens & Permanente Creeks Watershed Council.

 

No one denies that there's a trash problem in the Bay Area. Last year on Coastal Cleanup Day, volunteers pulled 125 tons of garbage out of the bay, including 15,000 plastic bags.

 

The trash flows from storm drains into local waterways, where it endangers wildlife and discourages recreation.

Wind and currents ultimately push the garbage into a section of the Pacific Ocean called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a floating island of refuse larger than the state of Texas. There's so much plastic in the water, Lewis said, "it's almost like a soup."

 

However, not everyone agrees on how to address the garbage problem.

 

If approved by the Environmental Protection Agency early next year, the new listing will require cities and counties to create detailed cleanup plans, but it won't provide funds to help pay for additional programs. Some worry the added bureaucracy will divert funds from projects already in place and make it hard to concentrate on the regions most affected by trash.

 

"It takes scarce resources and says, 'Look at everything.' We don't have the resources to do that, so we have to prioritize," said Adam Olivieri, program manager of the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program.

 

Preliminary reports estimate the new regulations will cost the city of San Jose $11 million over five years, said Melody Tovar, deputy director of the city's Environmental Services Department. Steps to reduce trash production are likely to include public outreach and education, more street sweeping and more catch basins around storm drains, where street trash flows into waterways.

 

San Jose has already started a pilot program to try new storm drain filters, Tovar said. But so far, the city has only installed 90 of the new devices, and an additional 29,000 will probably be needed.

 

Installing catch basins across the entire Bay Area would cost an estimated $130 million, Olivieri said, as well as $13 million a year in maintenance.

 

"We recognize that trash in our creeks is a significant and complex problem," Tovar said. "And we understand that it affects the vibrancy of our city's creeks. But we're concerned about the expense."

 

Others raised concerns over the methods used to identify "trash-impaired" creeks, saying the technique overemphasized trash "hot spots" along the 11,000 miles of affected creeks.

 

"It isn't a perfect way to evaluate the streams," said Lariz, who has participated in trash assessments. "But it is a systemic way, and it's the best tool we have."

 

Before making a decision, the Water Quality Board held a public hearing and responded to more than 200 pages of written comments.

 

For anyone who wants to understand the meaning of "trash-impaired," Lewis suggested joining a creek cleanup and seeing the garbage piles firsthand. Trash in the ocean isn't just what falls overboard from boats, he said.

 

"It's things from every household and strip mall parking lot. Ketchup packets, tennis balls, plastic bottles and cans — it underscores that the trash is coming from all of us."#

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11682196?source=rss

 

Discharge violations cost city dearly

The San Diego Union Tribune – 2/13/09

By Angela Lau

 

OVERVIEW

Background: The city of Escondido was fined $1.8 million in 2005 by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Board for 451 instances of spills and discharges of inadequately treated sewage.

 

What's happened since: The city tried to negotiate with the regional board to reduce its penalty to $1.3 million, half of which would have been used to buy 13½ acres along Escondido Creek in Harmony Grove for preservation.

 

The decision: The regional board fined the city $1.3 million and rejected the land purchase.

 

ESCONDIDO — The city of Escondido lost three rounds in hearings before a state clean-water panel for numerous instances of discharging inadequately treated sewage and spills more than three years ago.

 

The first was a $1.34 million fine for the violations, which occurred in 2004 and 2005. The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board approved the fine on a 4-3 vote at a hearing Wednesday.

 

The second was contained in the same vote, with the board rejecting a proposal by the city and environmental groups to use $675,000 of the fine to buy 13½ acres along Escondido Creek in Harmony Grove for preservation.

 

The city and the environmental organizations had hoped to prevent development on the land, which would be part of 1,000 acres of preserved environmental property.

 

The third was harsh criticism from some board members, who chastised city officials for failing to help the city's environmental partners prepare a solid plan to buy the land and supervise its preservation.

 

Board members said they might have gone along with the land acquisition, which they said would have benefited the environment. But Escondido's staff had not asked the City Council for official support, which would have assured the board that the money would be well-spent.

 

Members of the panel agreed with their staff's complaints that Escondido city staffers did not know whether the two landowners were willing to sell, or the price, and did not have a timetable to track the project's progress.

 

They said the environmental groups involved in the proposed land acquisition – the Escondido Creek Conservancy and San Diego Coastkeeper – were not to blame.

 

“I am really, honestly disappointed,” board Chairman Richard Wright said. “This has the possibility of being a good . . . environmental project. You should know how to put these things together. But I don't see it.”

 

“I fully share your disappointment,” board member Wayne Rayfield said. “The city of Escondido should have had council action approving (the land purchase) – something that we can rely on – and have someone oversee the project.”

Gabriel Solmer, an attorney for San Diego Coastkeeper, urged the board to support the land acquisition.

 

“It would really be a shame to lose this opportunity,” she said. “You can't acquire property first and then come back to the board for approval after spending money.”

 

Instead, the board committed all of the fine to the state's environmental cleanup fund. Escondido will have to apply for an allocation from the fund if it wants to begin an environmental project, a board official said.

 

Yesterday, Escondido City Attorney Jeff Epp said the city was glad to finally settle the violations.

 

He said the proposed land acquisition was a joint project and that the city was following the lead of the Escondido Creek Conservancy.

 

“While most of their comments appeared to be directed at the city, the environmental agencies involved with us weren't necessarily as responsive as they could have been,” Epp said. “We were simply trying to something that was a little more environmentally friendly.

 

“From our perspective, payment of the fine is certainly more simple. It doesn't involve ongoing responsibilities.”

 

The regional board's action was a follow-up on a $1.8 million fine imposed on the city in 2005.

 

That fine was negotiated down to $690,000 in 2006, with a promise from the city to conduct studies of its Hale Avenue Resource Recovery Facility, Escondido's wastewater treatment plant. Those studies have been completed, and the city has added two wastewater storage tanks to minimize spills.

 

But the conservancy and San Diego Coastkeeper appealed the fine to the state Water Resources Control Board, arguing that it should have been more. The state board sent the matter back to the regional board for reconsideration, and the final hearing was held Wednesday.

 

After the hearing, Solmer said she was frustrated.

 

“We were not able to have local benefit,” she said. “There was failure on all sides to understand what was being required, but I'm happy there is closure.” #

 

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/13/1mc13spill2297-discharge-violations-cost-city-dear/?zIndex=52349

 

Regulators under fire over chemical plume cleanup

Postponements go back 20 years

The San Diego Union Tribune – 2/13/09

By Mike Lee

 

This week, the region's top water-pollution regulators were supposed to consider levying one of their biggest fines ever: $2.3 million for a plume of potentially deadly chemicals that stretches for more than a mile in El Cajon.

 

But they deferred the hearing – the latest in a series of postponements dating back 20 years.

 

The underground leak is the largest of its kind in California for which cleanup hasn't started, according to the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board. Lack of action on the case illustrates how efforts to protect the environment can become hobbled by bureaucracy, legal tactics and questionable enforcement strategies.

 

It also raises doubts about the water board's ability to hold major polluters accountable.

 

“There have been some extraordinary delays,” said Jack Minan, an environmental law professor at the University of San Diego and a former chairman of the water board who worked on the plume issue earlier this decade. “The public has a right to expect greater progress.”

 

Two decades ago, the board started demanding that industrial companies Ametek and Ketema map the full extent of the plume at a facility on Greenfield Drive that was used for making aircraft engine parts. A waste tank had leaked tens of thousands of gallons of solvents and other chemicals before it was removed, the water board said.

 

The agency doesn't cite any health problems directly linked to the plume of compounds such as tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene. Human exposure to those substances can result in dizziness, organ damage and death.

 

San Diego's leaders recently pressed the water board to clean up the pollution. They want to protect a municipal well in the El Cajon Valley and their city's interest in drawing more water from the valley.

 

Water board officials said the subsurface mapping remains incomplete. One of the agency's documents said “responsible parties at comparable sites” typically spend five years to accomplish such tasks.

 

Ametek probably would have to pay for the cleanup work, which could cost millions of dollars, and any penalties. Its attorneys said the water board has moved so slowly that fines are no longer valid. They also argue that the board has failed to recognize a “significant amount of investigatory work” at the site.

 

David King, a current member of the water board, wouldn't discuss the Ametek situation because it's expected to come up for review this year. He defended the agency's overall record.

 

“If you go out and speak to every mayor in the county and every (pollution) discharger who has a permit, nobody is going to tell you that we don't actively enforce the water code,” King said.

 

But in January, the state's bipartisan Little Hoover Commission released a report critical of California's water-pollution-control system, which consists of nine regional boards and a state panel.

 

“The current structure places too little emphasis on accountability and outcomes,” commission Chairman Daniel Hancock told legislators at the time. “No one is holding regional boards truly accountable for protecting and improving water quality. Regional boards, in turn, are overwhelmed by their tasks.”

 

In San Diego, the regional board has struggled to complete some high-profile cases in recent years.

 

Those include a 17-year effort to clear away a large leak beneath a fuel-tank farm in Mission Valley. In December, the agency fined the facility's current owner, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, $222,000 for failing to adequately clean water from the polluted site before depositing it into a tributary of the San Diego River. The penalty came after San Diego city officials complained to the water board that Kinder Morgan had avoided sanctions for years despite a pattern of violations.

 

The board also hasn't launched a program for removing or covering tainted sediment in San Diego Bay despite decades of study and a cleanup order that has languished since 2005.

 

Dorothy Rice, executive director of the State Water Resources Control Board, said last year that she had “great concern about the (regional board's) ability to complete the cleanup order process in a timely manner.”

 

Efforts to determine the El Cajon plume's size started in the late 1980s, when regional water board officials documented leaks in the waste tank, said John Anderson, a senior geologist for the agency.

 

The leak had lasted for perhaps two decades, Anderson said. Eventually, the contaminants reached groundwater and spread northwest toward the San Diego River.

 

Ametek removed the tank and some polluted soil before installing several monitoring wells, according to the company's documents.

 

Around that time, Ametek split off a portion of its business. The spinoff, Ketema, took the lead on mapping and cleanup.

It later changed its name to Schutte & Koerting, whose officials challenged the water board on major elements of the mapping and cleanup order. The dispute led to years of administrative appeals, court hearings and mediation sessions that the water board blames as prime reasons for its delay.

 

Schutte & Koerting filed for bankruptcy liquidation in 2007. The main responsibility for mapping and cleanup of the plume reverted to Ametek, which has since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars studying the site, its attorneys said.

 

“We will not cause delay, and we haven't caused delay,” said John Lormon of San Diego, one of those attorneys.

 

Anderson gave a different assessment, accusing the companies of foot-dragging over the years with litigation and low-quality work. One reason cited for the latest postponement is Anderson's need to answer questions posed by Ametek's attorneys.

 

“We have tried to bend over backward to help these folks comply, and . . . every time we thought we were on the same page, they would come up with something that was inadequate and we were back to square one,” Anderson said. “Basically, I think they have stalled quite a bit.”

 

Historically, the El Cajon plume hasn't been the water board's top priority because it hasn't contaminated existing wells, said John Robertus, the agency's executive officer.

 

Robertus said he isn't directly involved with the fine now proposed against Ametek because of how the board's functions are divided.

 

“It's kind of a ballet that we do on an annual basis. We decide . . . which (cases) we're going to work on and which ones we aren't,” Robertus said. “You have to understand, I have very few people. I don't have enough staffing to keep up with all these” polluted sites.

 

Others attributed the Ametek case's slow pace partly to the board not issuing fines earlier for fear that it would jeopardize cleanup. It's a common tactic that can backfire.

 

“The regional board was working more cooperatively with the company as opposed to taking enforcement . . . and it went on for years,” said Mark Alpert, a former enforcement officer for the regional board. #

 

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/13/1n13plume001937-regulators-under-fire-over-chemica/?zIndex=52426

 

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