Huge Oil Runoff Into Santa Monica Bay Found

Even though only eight inches of rain fell on the greater Los Angeles area in 1989, storm drain runoff carried more than 4.4 million pounds of oil and grease into Santa Monica Bay, according to a study released Tuesday.

“We’ve got the equivalent of a major oil spill going into Santa Monica Bay every year because of this runoff,” said Diane Cameron, an official with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental group that did the study.

The study also estimated that more than 522,000 pounds of zinc, 11,100 pounds of cadmium and 152,000 pounds of lead were swept into the bay because of runoff. Those amounts are far greater than the amounts deposited by the area’s two major sewage plants, the study concluded. The levels should be viewed as “rough estimates,” Cameron said.