Muddied Waters : Shared Jurisdiction Mires Harbor Lake Cleanup Efforts

Three years after elevated levels of toxic chemicals were detected in fish in Wilmington’s Harbor Lake, state officials have launched a study to pinpoint whether South Bay storm drains are the source of the pollution.

Taira Yoshimura, an environmental specialist with the Regional Water Quality Control Board in Los Angeles, said that a maze of channels and sloughs funnels runoff into the lake, which is owned by the city of Los Angeles.

“That’s the way most of the water and the sediment would be conveyed to the lake, so that’s the most likely suspect,” Yoshimura said.

The 100-acre lake and surrounding recreation and picnic area near Pacific Coast Highway and Vermont Avenue attract scores of people on weekdays and hundreds of visitors on weekends.

After The Times reported in 1983 that no agency was monitoring fish caught at Harbor Lake, the Regional Water Quality Board started an annual program to test samples of fish there. They found high levels of DDT, a banned pesticide; PCBs, a group of suspected cancer-causing synthetic lubricants, and chlordane, a now-restricted insecticide.

Levels of pollutants remained high in samples collected in 1984 but declined below federal safety limits by 1985, according to test results released last week. However, state scientists cautioned that the 1985 sample of a single carp and a single catfish was too small to make any sweeping conclusions.

“I don’t think I can say things are getting better or worse,” said Bruce Agee, an environmental specialist with the state Water Resources Control Board.

Yoshimura has started to collect samples from the silty lake bottom and plans to dredge up more sediment from the storm drains. Attempts to determine the source of the pollution had been stalled until the state found a laboratory that could analyze the sediment, Yoshimura said. The analysis may not be completed until next year.

Even then, local officials say, cleaning up the lake will be difficult because eight local, state and federal agencies share authority over the popular recreation spot.

In addition, since the pollution was detected, other environmental problems have surfaced at the lake. Mosquitoes breed in the dense tules growing there and pose the threat of an outbreak of encephalitis. At the same time, efforts to eradicate mosquitoes could threaten a breeding area for the endangered least tern.

Susan Prichard, the Harbor City field deputy for Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, complained that she has “run around in circles” trying to resolve these issues.

“There are . . . different organizations that have competing interests in the lake,” Prichard noted. “The city is held ultimately responsible, yet we can’t do anything without the cooperation of the . . . other agencies.”

Among the interested parties are the city Department of Parks and Recreation, the county Health Services Department, the county Flood Control District, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state Water Resources Control Board, the state Department of Fish and Game, the state Health Services Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Sometimes one agency does not know what another is doing at the lake.

For example, state health and Fish and Game officials published a warning about eating goldfish and carp from the lake after the 1983 and 1984 tests. Gerald A. Pollock, a toxicologist with the state Department of Health Services, said it was then the county’s responsibility to take any additional steps.

However, Leonard Mushin, chief of the county Health Services Department water pollution section, said he is unclear about what the county’s role is supposed to be at Harbor Lake, and he is unaware of any research done at the lake beyond the original 1983 fish study.

“There isn’t the kind of coordination you’re presuming,” Mushin told a reporter last week. “There are obviously some gaps.”

Seeking Jurisdiction

Now, another state agency, the Coastal Conservancy, is seeking to include the lake in its jurisdiction. A measure that would permit the conservancy to improve the water quality and waterfowl breeding areas at the lake was approved by the Senate Natural Resources Committee on a 7-1 vote Tuesday and sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The conservancy would consider spending about $500,000 at the lake from state bond issues.

“We feel that Harbor Lake is of statewide importance, not just local importance,” Wendy Eliot, a conservancy analyst, said in an interview. “There are a dwindling number of wetlands, and freshwater wetlands, such as Harbor Lake, are exceedingly rare.”

The 1983 study by the regional water quality control scientists found, among other things, 1.9 parts per million and 2.2 parts per million of chlordane in two goldfish tested. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers 0.3 parts per million to be unsafe in food, Yoshimura said.

In 1984, levels of chlordane found in six goldfish were similarly high. Yoshimura said the average was 2.39 parts per million--still above the FDA safety standard.

In 1985, researchers did not catch any goldfish but found that the chlordane level in a single carp was 0.23 parts per million, below the FDA standard.

As a result of the 1983 and 1984 findings, the state Health Services Department in 1985 and 1986 inserted in state Fish and Game Department regulations a warning about eating goldfish and carp caught at the lake.

Signs Vandalized

Los Angeles city recreation officials say that signs warning anglers were posted but were vandalized and torn down about a year ago. New signs will be installed soon, park officials said.

None of the warnings mention catfish, the most common fish in the lake. State Fish and Game authorities, who publish the health warning about the lake, stock it with about 4,000 catfish every year. Keith Anderson, fisheries supervisor for the department in Southern California, said that the fish are caught “in a relatively short amount of time. They’re not there for years where they’re able to accumulate toxic substances.”

Authorities face a number of delicate environmental problems at the lake.

For example, the mosquito population at the lake is multiplying because tules and other plants, where the mosquitoes breed, have grown so thick that mosquitofish, which feed on the insects, cannot penetrate the breeding areas.

“The mosquitofish can’t get in there,” said David Attaway, environmental planner for the Department of Recreation and Parks.

The dense vegetation also has prevented the Southeast Mosquito Abatement District from spraying, said Jack Hazelrigg, the district’s entomologist.

Nesting Area

But the same marshy vegetation provides a foraging area for the least tern, which is an endangered species. If too many plants are removed to fight the mosquito problem, the birds’ nesting area could be damaged.

Last year, the city collided with the interests of other agencies when it dredged the middle portion of the lake, in part because silt prevented rainwater from flowing into the lake.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which has jurisdiction because the lake drains into the harbor, authorized the dredging, but it required the city to stabilize the lake embankment and plant trees. Chuck Holt, a branch chief with the corps, said the trees failed to take root, but the city plans to replant them to comply with all the conditions of the permit.

The dredging project also ran into trouble with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sharon Lockhart, a biologist with the federal agency, said the dredging backfired on the city because the water became so clouded that waterfowl could no longer catch fish because they couldn’t see their prey.

Partly as a result of the dredging project, the Fish and Wildlife Service asked the city to halt any other work at the lake until the city completes a comprehensive plan for maintaining the lake as a recreation area and wildlife habitat. The study is expected to be completed in four months.

City Council staffer Prichard said that without such a strategy “you go around in a righteous circle trying to solve the problems of the lake.”