Novel Runoff Fee Sought to Clean Santa Monica Bay

A new financing plan, charging fees to homeowners and businesses for their pollution, was proposed by Mayor Tom Bradley on Tuesday to clean up one of the worst sources of Santa Monica Bay contamination--runoff from streets, sidewalks, parking lots and other paved and built-over areas.

The proposal was announced at a City Hall press conference by Bradley and other Los Angeles city officials. The plan was developed by city public works officials and aides to the mayor and Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

Runoff of rain and other water polluted by street, motor vehicle and animal waste and other urban grime is one of the two biggest polluters of Santa Monica Bay, a body of water that provides recreation to hundreds of thousand of people each year. The other is sewage treated at the city’s Hyperion plant. The quality of that plant’s treatment, under a court order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has improved sharply recently.

Under the runoff treatment financing plan, special taxing districts would be created by the City Council, in which property owners would be assessed to finance new facilities to clean up the filthy water before it hits the bay.

Officials said that if the City Council approved a $20-million-a-year runoff cleanup program the average fee per single-family home would be about $9 a year, with significantly higher rates for commercial and industrial landowners.

That would be on top of an average residential sewage service charge of $125 a year financing a huge reconstruction and modernization of the city sewer system. By 1994, that charge will rise to $277 annually.

Robert S. Horii, who heads the city Bureau of Engineering, said such facilities could cost “hundreds of millions” of dollars.

Bradley said design work will begin immediately on two pilot projects aimed at determining the cost and effectiveness of various cleanup methods. One will be at Ballona Creek in Marina del Rey, the city’s worst source of runoff pollution. The other will control runoff at Venice’s Brooks Avenue drain, a big source of pollution at Venice Beach.

The special taxing areas, called benefit assessment districts, have been used for years to put up street lighting and make other civic improvements. They do not require votes by affected property owners.

What is unique about this plan, city officials said, is that the taxes would be levied according to the amount of asphalt or concrete, or buildings, on a property. Such covering prevents storm water from percolating into the soil.

Thus owners of a building surrounded by a huge parking lot would pay more than one encompassed by lawn.

And fees would be lowered if property owners found ways to reduce their runoff by such methods as planting patches of grass and shrubs in paved areas. These rewards would apply to homeowners as well as to owners of commercial property.

“It is feasible to establish a fee structure that would provide incentive for property owners to design methods of water harvesting (collection and storage of rainwater for irrigation), greenbelts, detention basins, intensified surface cleaning or other techniques to inhibit flow and reduce pollution,” city officials said in a summary of the plan presented to reporters.

Announcement of the plan followed a decision by the EPA several months ago that local governments would have to clean up runoff pollution. But while the EPA found such pollution a threat, and promised to finance research, the federal agency made it clear that Washington could not supply the massive amounts of money needed to control runoff.

Environmentalists, who have clashed with Bradley over bay pollution in the past, said they are pleased by the plan.

“I am very proud to be part of the city now,” said Dorothy Green of Save the Bay, an organization that has led the fight to force government to clean up the bay.

Catherine Tyrell, director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, said “it’s up to us to finance” the cleanup efforts and “this seems like one innovative way to do it. It really seems like it would work.”

John Stodder, Bradley’s top environmental aide, said the benefit assessment districts have financed similar cleanup projects in Bellevue, Wash., and small cities in Florida. But he said this is the first time such an approach has been proposed for a big city.

Two members of the City Council supported the plan. They were Zev Yaroslavsky and Ruth Galanter, who represent Westside areas near the bay.

But Bradley will have to muster his political skills to push the measure through the 15-member council. Increasing the sewer service charged passed the council on a bare 8-7 vote in May.

Cooperation Needed

In addition, Stodder said, cooperation will be needed from county and state officials for a successful runoff cleanup campaign.

Many streets and highways, for example, are under county and state jurisdiction and would have to share in the cleanup costs.

One of the pilot projects announced by the mayor would involve installation of an inflatable rubber dam across Ballona Creek. Water would be screened to remove waste and then the water would be disinfected. Officials said the cleansed water could be used to irrigate the nearby Ballona Wetlands.

The other proposal would shift water from the Brooks Avenue drain in Venice, where it now flows directly onto the beach, into the Thornton Avenue drain, where it would be cleaned.