PROPOSITION L : No Pipe Dream

Proposition L, on the November ballot, would allow Los Angeles to issue $1.5 billion in revenue bonds to upgrade the city’s aging and badly deteriorating sewer system. The modernization would help improve the quality of treated waste water that goes into Santa Monica Bay.

If Prop. L passes, as it should, the average monthly sewer bill will increase gradually from the current $18 to about $27 in fiscal 1996-97. Fixing sewers that in some places are more than 100 years old is certainly expensive. But Los Angeles really has no choice in this matter. Federal and state orders mandate 90% of the improvements, including projects that would prevent the sewage system from overflowing and polluting the bay.

Regulatory action by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Regional Water Quality Control Board require completion of these projects by 1998.

Procrastinating could dramatically increase the cost of improving the sewers. Interest rates are now at exceptionally low levels, which would lead to great savings in financing these bonds. These rates won’t be around forever. Waiting to bring the city into compliance could boost residential sewer service bills much higher. The sewer projects also provide another significant benefit--thousands of construction jobs.

Financing this critically needed work with revenue bonds repaid over years is efficient and practical. Prop. L needs only a simple majority vote to allow the city to reduce pollution and help to restore the once pristine quality of Santa Monica Bay.