Water Called Top Problem in Lakewood

Water and trash top the list of issues facing city government in the ‘90s, officials said Tuesday at the annual State of the City breakfast for municipal employees, commissioners and elected officials.

“Of all the challenges we face,” City Administrator Howard L. Chambers told the audience of 200, “the most important is the issue of preserving our adequate water supply.”

Lakewood, he said, will be among those local governments that in the next decade take a more aggressive posture on water quality and conservation. “We have to solve our water problems in this state,” Chambers said.

Lakewood gets 95% of its water from city-owned wells. The city is “fortunate not to have any of the toxins that have been found in other places,” said James B. Glancy, director of the city Water Department.

Water quality, however, is still a critical issue in Lakewood, public information director Donald J. Waldie said later, because pollutants from industrial and manufacturing sources in the San Gabriel Valley have seeped into the ground water and can migrate toward Lakewood wells.

Water is expected to become such an important issue in the next decade, several city officials pointed out, that the city has created a separate Water Department out of what had been a division of the Public Works Department.

Glancy said reclamation of sewer water is an important part of the process. The city is already using the specially treated water, purchased from the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, to keep city parks green. The city has also begun arranging for other large users, such as schools, to use reclaimed water.

Mayor Larry Van Nostran touched on the importance of crime and drug prevention programs and cultivation of the city’s economic base. But he also stressed environmental concerns, saying that “1990 is another year of crisis in the environment. We must confront the hard issues of air quality, solid waste management, safe drinking water and the growing transportation gridlock.”

Solutions, the mayor said, would have to be regional. “We must make every level of government more accountable for policies which fail to address our environmental crisis,” Van Nostran said.

William J. (Joe) O’Neil, head of public works, said that “solid waste disposal . . . most commonly known to us as trash” will become an increasingly familiar term in the decade as landfills reach capacity and cities begin to wrestle with state orders to reduce the volume of trash they generate.

“Over the next few years,” O’Neil said, “you’re going to hear a lot about recycling and composting.”

Lakewood generates more than 65,000 tons of trash a year, he said. The state has ordered a 25% reduction in trash output by 1995 and a 50% reduction by the year 2000. Every city is under state order to come up with a proposal for reaching those goals. Lakewood has hired a consultant to help develop a plan, he said.

This was the first year that the city invited all of its approximately 160 employees to the breakfast. In the past only elected and appointed officials and department heads were invited.