Environment Groups to Protest Federal OK of Dumping in Bay

Unhappy with a court-ordered attempt at compromise, environmental groups plan to protest a decision by the federal government to allow 12 more years of sewage dumping into Santa Monica Bay by the City of Los Angeles, several parties to the negotiations said Monday.

The groups, which represent the city’s leading clean-water advocates, object to a proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed nine years ago by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The suit sought to force Los Angeles to comply with federal laws against ocean dumping, but the city has missed several deadlines.

In particular, the environmental groups say the proposed settlement is far too lenient in allowing the city until the end of 1998 to fully treat waste water pumped into the bay. The city contends that it can’t guarantee cleaning up the ocean discharge before then, and the EPA has agreed.

“We are, to put it mildly, distressed,” said Dorothy Green of Heal the Bay, an organization that argues the city is responsible for much of the bay’s pollution. “A whole generation of kids are going to be prevented from using the ocean.”

The proposed settlement, which includes a $625,000 penalty against the city, was agreed to by Los Angeles, the EPA and state water officials last summer. They submitted it to U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson for approval last October. But at a hearing in December, Pregerson ordered the agencies to first listen to the objections of environmental groups.

Several meetings have been held since and produced minor revisions in the proposed settlement to increase the ability of outside groups to monitor the city’s progress, according to lawyers involved in the negotiations.

For instance, the city has agreed to prepare written reports every three months on the status of the Hyperion Energy Recovery System, the new sewage treatment plant under construction in El Segundo that the city is counting on to solve the problems. Also, the agencies have also agreed to ask Pregerson to hold status conferences twice a year at which complaints against the city will be aired.

But the city and EPA held fast against the two major requests of environmental groups--to move the deadline date earlier, perhaps by having construction crews work double shifts, and to appoint an outside expert to keep tabs on the city.

The Justice Department, which represents the EPA in the legal proceedings, also has steadfastly resisted a request by the California Environmental Trust to designate the city’s $625,000 penalty as a trust fund for cleaning up the polluted bay. Justice lawyers say the money will be deposited in the U.S. Treasury.

Pregerson is expected to hold a public hearing on the proposed settlement, perhaps later this month, and environmental leaders said they expect to voice continued displeasure.

“The deadline they have set is absolutely unacceptable,” said Nancy Taylor, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s clean coastal waters task force.

“I believe there are serious flaws in the consent decree (proposal for settlement), and there is no substantiation for the major provision” allowing the city until 1998 to comply, said Mary Nichols, former chair of the state Air Resources Board and environmental adviser to Mayor Tom Bradley, who is widely criticized by clean-water advocates. “As for cleaning up the bay, there is nothing there.”

Ralph Nutter, a retired Superior Court judge who represents county lifeguards, local anglers and some environmentalists in the suit, said the negotiations ordered by Pregerson were helpful in getting each side to understand the other’s position.

“We made substantial progress,” Nutter said. “What we’re worried about is they’ve spent $2 billion on this (Hyperion) plant and they’re not really sure it’s going to work.”

The new Hyperion treatment plant is being built to convert concentrated sewage known as sludge into a dry, combustible powder that will be burned to generate electricity. Another area of the plant will fully treat waste water removed from the sludge and pump it into the ocean. However, the special process developed to process the sludge has never been tested on so large a scale, city officials said.