Mayor Taps Critic for Environment Panel : Foe of Dumping Sewage in Ocean Picked After Chairman Quits

Acting quickly to quell a fresh environmental controversy for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Deputy Mayor Mike Gage said Tuesday that a leading critic of the city’s sewage dumping in Santa Monica Bay will be appointed to a vacancy on the Environmental Quality Board.

Bradley Administration officials hoped that the selection of Felicia Marcus, an attorney for the group Heal the Bay, will dissolve any ill will toward the mayor caused by the resignation of Rob Glushon, an environmental activist who was chairman of the board for two years.

Glushon resigned Monday with a harsh attack on Bradley’s environmental record. He also charged at a news conference Tuesday that Bradley stopped talking to Environmental Quality Board members once the 1986 governor’s race ended.

Since the election, which Bradley lost to Gov. George Deukmejian, two other board members the mayor appointed have also resigned and complained of lax attention to the environment.

Gage said Tuesday that Marcus, 31, will be officially appointed as soon as possible after Bradley returns from a four-day trip to his hometown of Calvert, Tex., and to New York, where he is meeting with General Motors executives. Bradley is due back Friday.

“She is a talented, energetic, environmentally oriented individual,” Gage said of Marcus.

As a volunteer attorney for Heal the Bay, which opposes the city’s dumping of partially treated sewage in the ocean, Marcus has frequently criticized the mayor and the city.

She has represented Heal the Bay in an 11-year-old lawsuit against Los Angeles by the Environmental Protection Agency and state water regulators. The suit has tried to force the city to comply with the 1972 federal Clean Water Act. Heal the Bay has been admitted to the proceedings as a friend of the court.

Marcus and other Heal the Bay leaders criticized a settlement in the suit reached last year that gave the city until 1998 to increase the treatment of all waste-water discharged to the bay. They said the settlement allowed the city more time than was needed.

Marcus, an attorney for the downtown firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, was a law clerk in 1983-84 to U.S. Appeals Court Judge Harry Pregerson, who presides over the suit against Los Angeles. A Democrat, she also has been affiliated with the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles.

Marcus, who said she supported Bradley for governor but is not a campaign contributor, declined Tuesday to become involved in criticism of Bradley’s handling of the Environmental Quality Board.

‘Pretty Amazing’

“The fact that he would appoint me is pretty amazing and has got to indicate that he is interested in doing something,” she said. “He knows me and knows I have a big mouth. I’ve been given assurances I can say and do whatever I want.”

The five board members are supposed to advise city government on environmental issues and produce an annual State of the Environment report. Glushon complained Tuesday that no report has been issued since 1977 because of mayoral disinterest.

Gage, speaking for Bradley, said he did not know enough about the history of the State of the Environment report to comment. But he described as “hogwash” Glushon’s charge that Bradley does not care about environmental problems, citing the mayor’s decisions last year to stop construction of the Lancer trash-burning plant, propose mandatory trash recycling and request strict water-saving measures.

“Frankly, I am delighted that Mr. Glushon has resigned,” Gage said. “Methinks Mr. Glushon does not have his facts right.”