3 Water Agencies Aim at Joint Cleanup; Activists Protest Plan

In what environmentalists have called “the fight for the hearts, minds and faucets of the San Gabriel Valley,” the longstanding struggle over who will oversee the complicated and expensive cleanup of polluted ground water could take a new twist next week.

Federal environmental officials have acknowledged that no single government entity has overall authority to supervise and finance the regional cleanup efforts. Responding to this void, a local water agency and two of the region’s key water districts have decided to band together to try to take over the leading cleanup role.

On Tuesday, the local water agency--known as the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster--will ask a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to give it expanded authority in controlling how and where the region’s water is pumped by water companies. Such control, the Watermaster and the water districts contend, would be a crucial step in remedying the pollution problem.

“This is a method that will work,” said Reginald Stone, vice chairman of the Watermaster, which oversees water pumping rights.

Environmentalists oppose the plan, saying they fear that giving such control to the Watermaster could shut out public participation in the cleanup effort and adversely affect 1 million water consumers from Alhambra to La Verne.

The environmentalists, as well as politicians such as Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) and Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-Baldwin Park), say a new regional super-agency, accountable to the public, should be created through state legislation.

“We’re afraid if (the Watermaster and the water districts) get control of the cleanup, it won’t be very efficient,” said Maxine Leichter, head of the water quality group for the 50,000-member Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club.

Leichter and other environmentalists say they are concerned that the Watermaster and water districts have a conflict of interest in the cleanup effort because they are in the business of making money from pumping and selling water.

The San Gabriel Basin, source of drinking water for most of the San Gabriel Valley, suffers from one of the West’s most severe underground pollution problems. The contamination was caused largely by solvents and degreasing agents, used since World War II by large industries and small businesses such as dry cleaning establishments.

Although the basin was placed in 1984 on the federal list of Superfund sites of the nation’s worst environmental disasters, little actual cleanup has occurred. This has frustrated environmentalists, politicians, water consumers and local water agencies alike.

By having more authority over how the more than 50 water companies and water districts pump water, Watermaster officials say, they can oversee installation of pollution treatment facilities and monitor more closely the pumping of water. The pumping influences movement of large underground plumes, or clusters, of contamination in the San Gabriel Valley. With more power, the water officials say, they will be able to quickly implement an effective treatment plan for the pollution, discovered in 1979.

Boards of two of the three key water districts, Three Valleys Municipal Water District and the San Gabriel Valley Water District, each voted earlier this month to form an alliance to work with the Watermaster in solving the pollution problem. The third board, of Upper San Gabriel Valley Water District, is scheduled to vote Friday on whether to join in.

The Sierra Club last week and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office both have filed briefs arguing against the Watermaster’s plan.

“The waters would be very much muddied, if the Watermaster were granted additional powers,” said Jan Chatten-Brown, who serves as Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s special assistant on environmental issues.

The action proposed by the Watermaster has its appeal, said Bill Van Buskirk of the environmental group known as SWIG (Superfund Working/Information Group). But, he said, “Our position is relatively rigid in wanting an independent agency.”

Robert Berlien, general manager of the Upper San Gabriel district, counters that it would take too much time to create a super-agency as advocated by environmentalists. This would require state legislation that could take several years, he said. “In the meantime, nothing gets accomplished,” Berlien said.

“We’re trying to follow recommendations of the state water board,” Berlien said, “and get the cleanup under way.”

In spite of their differences, environmentalists, politicians and water district representatives have formed a task force on the issue and are scheduled to meet tonight to discuss the cleanup, estimated to cost between $850 million and $1 billion.

Federal and state environmental officials in April presented a proposal for how the water contamination should be remedied. But both state and federal officials say it is up to local and regional officials to come up with the means of ridding the basin of pollution.

Next Thursday, the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento will review what progress San Gabriel water agencies have made in resolving how they will approach the cleanup.