Bradley for Tax to Help Bay Cleanup

A plan to clean up Santa Monica Bay by blocking or treating the storm drain runoff that is a major source of pollution could cost the average homeowner $28 a year, according to a report released Friday.

And the owners of heavily paved commercial and industrial sites, which produce greater runoff, would be charged more than twice as much per square foot as the typical homeowner under the plan.

The figures are contained in a proposal endorsed Friday by Mayor Tom Bradley, who urged the City Council to approve the “user charge” and other measures spelled out by a task force appointed last July to find ways to pay for the cleanup.

The charge would be added to annual real estate tax bills and is intended to generate an estimated $40 million a year. The tax could be imposed as early as 1991, but the rate probably would not reach the $28 level until later years, according to John Stodder, Bradley’s top environmental aide.

The $28-a-year figure is calculated for a residential lot of 6,650 square feet.

Under the task force proposal, the “user charge” would be levied in proportion to the amount of runoff created by a specific piece of property.

Storm water runoff has increased as a source of pollution in the bay as developers and road builders have paved over thousands of acres of land that once would have absorbed a heavy rainfall.

The water that runs through storm drains into the bay now carries with it motor vehicle and animal waste, dangerous organic compounds and other urban grime that is dangerous to marine life and to the health of thousands of people who use the bay for recreation.

In a letter to the City Council, Bradley said the runoff has become “a witches’ brew of oil and grease, bacteria, organic compounds and toxic heavy metal residues that inexorably is carried to the ocean.”

Bradley said the cleanup will require a combination of solutions, including an inflatable dam to be installed across Ballona Creek in Marina del Rey, public education about the proper disposal of hazardous waste and development of more green belts and and tree plantings to absorb water before it can flow into the sewers.

Bradley also endorsed a task force recommendation for the establishment of a storm water permit system and inspection program for commercial and industrial properties. That program would include incentives for owners who control pollution flow.