Cleanup Plan for Bay Is Unveiled : Environment: Group’s proposal for waters off Santa Monica includes greater control of storm runoff and increased warnings to swimmers.

Impatient with efforts to clean up Santa Monica Bay, an environmental group Monday released a comprehensive plan calling for greater control of storm runoff, sewage and industrial discharges and demanding increased warnings to the public of what it called the potential health risks of swimming near storm drain outlets.

Activists from Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay joined members of several other environmental groups and elected officials at a Playa del Rey news conference in urging adoption of the recommendations.

Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) raised the stakes by demanding that the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project--the government-funded group directing cleanup efforts--embrace the environmentalists’ agenda or risk losing its state funding.

“There is still a long way to go in cleaning up Santa Monica Bay,” said Heal the Bay’s executive director, Adi Liberman. “But this is not pie in the sky. It’s not far off. This is something that we can do.”

The environmental groups have been working with government officials, politicians and industry representatives as part of the restoration project. That group is not scheduled to release its final recommendations for three years.

“That is too long to wait,” said Liberman in presenting Heal the Bay’s 34-page report.

The recommendations prompted displeasure among businesses and some government officials. Waste dischargers targeted in the report, such as Chevron U.S.A., said it does not give them enough credit for the high level of treatment their waste water already receives, while county health officials said the recommendations might cause undue alarm about swimming in bay waters that are essentially healthy.

The report:

* Reiterates opposition to the county’s dumping of partially treated sewage off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which it is doing under a waiver of the federal Clean Water Act.

* Calls on Chevron to complete plans for reclaiming water used in its El Segundo refinery operations or to direct the flow farther from shore than the current outfall 100 yards off the beach.

* Advocates a wide-ranging health survey of swimmers in an effort to settle the long-running questions about potential health risks of swimming in the bay. Heal the Bay officials said the study should focus on beaches near Santa Monica storm drains, where high levels of bacteria have been measured.

* Recommends closure of stretches of beach near storm drains when bacteria counts are high. County health officials have opposed such a move, saying health risks have not been proven.

The report, called “How to Heal the Bay,” places particular emphasis on storm drains that, even during dry weather, dump 25 million gallons of runoff daily into the bay.

The report suggests that the drains can be kept cleaner by increasing the number of dumping sites for household hazardous waste, adopting land-use plans that promote landscaping rather than paving, limiting the amount of runoff that flows to the bay, posting anti-dumping warning signs on inlets for all storm drains, and increasing street sweeping.

Finally, the report suggests that relatively smaller flows during dry months should be treated at sewage plants before being released into the ocean.

Heal the Bay found an appropriate setting for the news conference.

As the group addressed reporters on a bridge spanning Ballona Creek, a fisherman baited his hook close to a sign warning against eating white croaker, the bottom-feeding fish that have been found to carry high levels of toxic contamination. Beneath the bridge, giant yellow booms strained debris from the creek about 100 yards from the ocean.

Hayden said many of the recommendations, particularly the call for full treatment of the county’s sewage, should have been adopted long ago by the restoration project.

“Either they adopt these recommendations or their funding on a state level will end,” he said.

Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), whose legislation founded the group, said he also is eager for the organization to take tougher stands. He is not as disillusioned as Hayden, calling the group “still the best hope we have for cleaning up Santa Monica Bay.”

Catherine Tyrrell, director of the restoration project, said the organization already has embraced many of the suggestions. She said she was surprised that Hayden would try to kill this year’s $333,000 appropriation because most environmental groups have called for more funding for the project.