Waste That Enters Storm Drains Is Targeted in Huge Cleanup Drive

With billions of dollars in improvements to the city of Los Angeles’ sewer system well under way, the struggle to clean up Santa Monica Bay is centering on the vast underground storm-drain network crisscrossing Los Angeles County.

Regulatory officials and environmentalists say the change reflects a nationwide trend as cities and counties have become more successful in solving sewage-treatment problems, only to be confronted with increasingly dangerous flows from previously ignored storm drains.

In Orange County, officials are in the early stages of tackling the runoff problem. The county’s Environmental Management Agency expects to implement in the near future an extensive program to test the water quality in storm water channels to single out the kinds of pollutants involved.

The next step is to develop a strategy to control the runoff, which Orange County is required to prepare by July. The requirements could include installation of detention basins, filters, and sumps in parking lots and developments to trap oil, chemicals and other pollutants.

Just developing the cleanup strategy will cost Orange County “well over $1 million,” said Richard Boon, an environmental resources specialist at the Environmental Management Agency. The county’s cities are expected to contribute.

Runoff is considered a main source of pollution to various waterways in the county, especially Newport Bay.

In Los Angeles, about 1,100 miles of drains lie beneath streets, collecting billions of gallons of runoff annually and dumping it into Santa Monica and San Pedro bays. The often-toxic soup of rainwater, grease, oil, litter and other pollutants has been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a leading cause of water pollution.

“People don’t realize that if you throw something in the street in downtown Los Angeles, it is likely going to end up in Santa Monica Bay,” said Mark Gold, a staff scientist for Heal the Bay, an environmental group based in Santa Monica. “It ends up with the motor oil, pesticides and tons of animal waste--all in the ocean.”

The ambitious cleanup will involve a dramatic--and potentially expensive--effort to change the way Los Angeles and its neighbors deal with what some environmentalists call “poison runoff.” Cities are beginning to tax property owners to pay for storm-drain improvements. Federal regulators recently began requiring special permits for discharges into the ocean from city and county storm drains.

The new permits have been criticized by some environmental groups as too lenient, but they have forced local officials to confront the issue. Within the next few years, Los Angeles will experiment with a variety of cleanup ideas, ranging from an inflatable rubber dam near Marina del Rey to countywide recycling programs for hazardous household wastes.

“It is an enormous task that will involve rethinking everything from the way we build parking lots to how you change your motor oil,” said Felicia Marcus of the Los Angles Board of Public Works. “We are going to hear a lot more about storm drains. This is just starting.”

More than 60 storm-drain outlets--ranging from a small pipe in the Malibu Hills to the concrete channel of Ballona Creek at the entrance to Marina del Rey--dump the polluted runoff into Santa Monica Bay. Last summer, officials took the unusual step of closing portions of Santa Monica Beach near one drain because of fears for public health. The county is expected to post warning signs this year near the mouth of at least eight drains.

A study by the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that eight inches of rain in 1989 washed 150,000 pounds of lead, 500,000 pounds of zinc and 11,000 pounds of cadmium into Santa Monica Bay--levels of the toxic heavy metals far greater than those discharged by local sewage-treatment plants during the same year. The environmental group also estimates that 4.5 million pounds of oil and grease, primarily from automobiles, drained into the bay in 1989.

“Most (sewage) discharges from traditional sources, such as cities and big industries, are pretty well controlled . . . (and) it is apparent that a lot of the sources of pollution coming into the bodies of water are storm-water related,” said Bob Wills, who monitors storm-water problems in California and other Western states for the EPA. “It is happening everywhere.”

After years of delays and inaction, the federal government has moved to force cities and industries to reduce the flow of contaminants from storm drains. Long-awaited regulations issued in October by the EPA require cities and counties of more than 100,000 population to apply within a year for a storm-water discharge permit and to develop programs to cut down on contaminants in the water.

In anticipation of the federal requirements, Los Angeles County and 16 local cities--including Los Angeles--negotiated an unprecedented agreement with state water quality officials last June that requires the local governments to begin controlling water pollution pouring from storm drains throughout the county. Eventually, the permit is expected to encompass all 86 cities in Los Angeles County.

Other cities and counties statewide, including Orange and San Diego counties, have followed suit, striking deals with state officials for the so-called “early permits.” Federal regulatory officials have not objected to the arrangements, and in some cases, encouraged them.

The city of Los Angeles, which until recently had a dismal record in meeting federal standards for sewage discharges, has been pushed by regulatory officials into taking a leadership role on storm-water pollution. In settlements over the last several years with the EPA and the state stemming from sewage-treatment violations, the city has agreed to correct problems at its Hyperion treatment plant and to begin cleaning up storm-water pollution.

Last March, the city created a five-person storm-water management division within the Department of Public Works which is projected to quadruple in size this year. The new division negotiated the early permit with state water quality officials and has turned its attention toward several million dollars worth of experimental storm-water cleanup projects.

One project calls for placing natural filters--narrow strips made of sand and vegetation--in parking lots to collect drippings of oil and other fluids from cars that wash into storm drains. If the filters are successful, city officials said the experiment could lead to new regulations for parking lot construction.

Another project would involve installation of an inflatable rubber dam across Ballona Creek, which acts as a natural storm drain, to trap storm water for treatment. City officials said they hope to treat dry weather flows in the creek as well as the first wet weather flow, which typically is laden with toxins and other pollutants that have accumulated on streets and rooftops during the dry summer months.

The experimental cleanup projects are geared toward collecting information on the nature of storm water pollution, which city and regulatory officials say is needed before long-term cleanup efforts can begin.

“We know it is pretty bad, but we want to quantify it,” said Phil Richardson, head of the city’s storm water division.

By all accounts, the cleanup effort will be expensive. Los Angeles city property owners are already paying for a portion of the task, which under worst-case scenarios could carry a price tag in the billions of dollars. The typical homeowner paid $2 in 1990 for storm drain improvements, and the cost is expected to triple or quadruple this year. The county expects to collect directly from taxpayers through increased flood-control assessments.

“Cleaning storm drain runoff could be the most expensive thing we’ve done in this city since the $3.5-billion sewer program,” said Los Angeles Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who chairs the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee. “But I don’t think we have a choice. The people of Los Angeles and Southern California are sick and tired of having to think twice before they dip their toe into the Pacific Ocean for fear of being contaminated by some toxin.”

While environmentalists generally applaud the new emphasis on the long-overlooked source of water pollution, some have criticized the new federal guidelines as too soft and unenforceable. Los Angeles and its neighboring cities have come under attack for preempting the guidelines by striking the early deal, which critics say is more hype than substance.

Several Northern California environmental groups have challenged the early permit issued by the state to the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The NRDC has challenged the permit issued to Los Angeles County and its neighboring cities.

The challenges, filed with the State Water Resources Control Board, are based in large part on the decision by state officials to exclude from the permits specific limits on contaminants in storm water. EPA guidelines do not set discharge limits. State and federal officials argue that not enough is known about the contaminants in storm water to regulate them. Cities and counties say it would be impractical and too expensive to meet specific discharge limits.

The environmental groups contend storm water should be treated the same as sewage treatment, which must comply with federally enforced limits on a variety of pollutants. Without such limits, they say, the permits and regulations do not meet recent amendments to the Clean Water Act governing storm water pollution.

Times staff writer Marla Cone in Orange County contributed to this report.