Residents Cry Foul at Street Slime : Covina: Sprinklers at a new housing development are the source of the residue. Who should bear the cost of a solution is hotly debated.

Residents fed up with what they say is a continual flow of green slime down their streets caused by irrigation runoff at a new housing development lashed out at city officials Monday for failing to require a storm drain at the site.

They also attempted to persuade officials to force the developers to immediately remedy the problem.

Residents of three streets say that lawn sprinklers at a nearby development run most of the day and that sometimes, late at night, water on Glentana Street is a three-foot wide flow alongside the curb.

The residue stems from the Covina Palms development, which sits on an incline in the 600 block of Rimsdale Avenue, north of San Bernardino Road. Scum enters a culvert on Glentana Street and flows down it, forming a Z shape as it intersects with Vogue Avenue and Bridger Street.

Councilman Henry Morgan asked the residents to “put up with letting the water run down the street a little longer until a proper solution is found to mitigate the problem.”

But residents, who say the problem has been going on since last fall, said they are tired of delays.

“Let’s not wait,” said Susan Rangel. She said that her 8-year-old son slipped in the slime and fell twice over the weekend while playing in her driveway.

Don Castro, one of about 20 residents who attended Monday’s City Council meeting, presented a petition with 50 signatures seeking the city’s help.

“It is not appropriate to carry this on too much longer,” Castro said. “We want a solution rather than a Band-Aid treatment. Gutters won’t do it. The mosquitoes are really bad. We want a remedy implemented now.”

In 1988, when the project was proposed, city planners recommended a storm drain for the site. But when the development came up for approval, the developers convinced the city that a storm drain was unnecessary and would be too costly.

The developers argued on Monday that they should not have to pay the entire cost and offered to contribute $25,000 toward a remedy.

Late last year, after construction began on Covina Palms, a development of 117 single-family homes, homeowners complained that the site’s irrigation system caused dirt, silt, wood chips and paint residue to continually flow down their streets.

When residents complained to city officials again in June, officials looked at several possible solutions, including installing a $153,000 underground pipe that would empty into a major storm drain. The city suggested that the cost either be shared between the residents and developers or funded entirely by the developers.

Steve Reenders, representing McIntyre/Reenders Development Co. and their partner, Lewis Homes of California, strongly objected to the idea of the developer paying for the drain, since the city originally had not required it.

But he said the developers are willing to immediately sandbag the area, dig a basin, monitor the timers on the irrigation system and clean Glentana Street weekly until the development is completed. He said that the companies would be willing to build a $25,000 concrete curb and gutter.

Residents still argued that these steps would not solve the problem.

At the Monday meeting, resident Maribeth Deloach said that weekly street cleaning would not be enough and brought along a batch of the scum in a plastic container to prove her point.

“This is really, really repulsive,” she said. “They cleaned the gutters July 6, and this was taken from my gutter today.” She said the deposits have brought hordes of roaches, flies and mosquitoes.

The City Council, however, decided to delay a decision on the matter until the next council meeting, in August. The council also appointed a city official to meet with the residents and the developers in the interim to work out a solution and cost.

David Craig, who lives on Bridger Street, said he is worried about what will happen when it rains.

“We don’t want water in our gutters at all, because when it rains it floods the yards,” he said. They will have to regrade the whole area.”

Resident Ricardo Valdez said the continual irrigation violated a city ordinance.

The ordinance he referred to states: “It is also unlawful to discharge or allow to be discharged any water upon any street or alley when such discharge is determined to be detrimental to street or alley surfaces.”

Covina City Atty. Charles Vose said it is up to the city to determine whether the flow is illegal or simply typical runoff.