Scum Has Residents Seeing Red

West Covina 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 this week for failing to require a storm drain at the site.

They also want 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 the affected streets forms a three-foot-wide stream along the curb.

The residue stems from the Covina Palms development, which sits on an incline in the 600 block of Rimsdale Avenue. Scum enters a culvert on Glentana Street and flows downhill from there.

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 her 8-year-old son twice slipped in the slime and fell last weekend while playing in her driveway.

Don Castro, one of about 20 residents who attended this week’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 of Covina Palms 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 the 117-home development, 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.