Old Enemies Join in Effort to Limit Water Pollution

In a sign of changing times, a militant environmental group has joined with an old enemy, the Southern California Metropolitan Water District, in proposing a major study aimed at reducing chemical pollution of the Southland’s underground water supply.

Both the MWD and the Environmental Defense Fund cited their teaming up as the beginning of a trend among formerly opposing groups on environmental issues. Both sides pointed to their proposal as an example of cooperation between organizations such as EDF and public agencies that have bridled at environmentalist charges that government regulation of pollution is business-controlled and weak.

The proposal aims to find ways of reducing chemical pollution where it begins--in manufacturing plants, cleaning shops, repair facilities and all the other businesses using chemicals that eventually find their way into natural underground water storage areas.

‘Source Reduction’

Recycling, recovery and use of safe chemicals would reduce pollution in a process called “source reduction,” or reducing toxic substances at their source, officials of the two groups said. That would be a change from present pollution control measures, which are built around government-financed dump and water cleanups and regulation and prosecution of polluters.

“Such measures would benefit both industry, which is faced with landfill bans and extreme regulatory pressure, and water agencies that are trying to protect the region’s aquifers (natural underground reservoirs),” said Carl Boronkay, general manager of the MWD, in a letter to the agency’s board of directors. “Source reduction would prevent part of the toxics problem by avoiding the cost of cleanup after the toxics have entered the water supply.”

“Preliminary evidence suggests that in the Los Angeles area, source reduction could reduce the overall volume of wastes that threaten water supplies by up to 75%,” Boronkay said.

Under the proposal, each group would contribute $300,000 to hire a project manager and researchers who would pick out an area within the MWD and try to find sources and amounts of pollution.

Vote Scheduled Dec. 9

The board, which includes several members hostile to environmentalists and who oppose discussing pollution threats to the underground water supply, is scheduled to vote on the proposal Dec. 9.

EDF senior attorneys Thomas J. Graff and David B. Roe, who is the fund’s coordinator for the project, said one possible site for the project is the Chino Basin, a 230-square-mile area located in western San Bernardino and northern Riverside counties, in a valley that includes the cities of Chino, Ontario and Fontana. The MWD board would have to approve the site.

Its underground water storage area provides agricultural, residential and industrial water for a fast-growing Inland Empire area.

In addition, the natural underground reservoir is being considered as a storage area for Northern California water shipped south in the California Water Project. The area, in fact, is crucial to expansion of the project. The latest expansion proposals envision sending large amounts of northern water south during wet years and storing it in the Chino basin. In dry years, there would be no importation from the north, thus helping preserve the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.

An MWD staff study reported nitrates in a “significant part” of the basin, the result of long use of agricultural chemicals. While the MWD said the nitrates do not affect current use of the water because it is mixed with better quality water from elsewhere, there is a concern that the basin’s storage function might be damaged.

Graff and Roe said researchers will interview factory and shop owners and other operators of pollution sources to find out what pollutants they put into the ground. As a protection against prosecution, polluters’ names will not be used in the study. Once the sources of pollution are known, the researchers will work on recommending ways they can be eliminated. Eventually, both sides hope that the recommendations can be used to set up a major pollution reduction program.

Boronkay said an advisory committee that includes local industry leaders will supervise the project.

The MWD funds will come from its treasury. Roe said the EDF will raise its share from contributions and from its list of donors.

The MWD and the fund have battled for years, most notably over the district’s attempts to import more Northern California water to the south, which the EDF says would endanger San Francisco Bay and the delta. The district has insisted that it must assure enough water for the future growth of the area it serves--Ventura, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

“People are fed up with environmentalists saying no all the time,” said Frederick Krupp, the EDF’s executive director. He called the proposal to work with the MWD part of the “third phase” of the environmental movement.

“The first stage of environmentalism was the reaction to the rapacious exploitation of resources in the West. The reaction of environmentalists to it was to say, ‘Don’t do it, stop.’ The second phase occurred when . . . people realized abuses were affecting the food chain. The third phase is the most challenging. Instead of merely saying no, we seek to find solutions, ways society can meet people’s needs and this project with the MWD is certainly an example of that, where a variety of parties realize that it is to everyone’s interest to protect the groundwater supply.”

Boronkay said, “This kind of working together will go a long way toward establishing mutual trust and confidence.”