Stop This Monstrous Runoff : UCLA study points finger at storm drains as a major bay polluter

It’s yucky, possibly even deadly: runoff from city streets. Trash, motor oil, chemicals, pet droppings and who knows what else find their ways into gutters. All this collects in catch basins and flows though storm drains into the great Pacific Ocean, where people and fish play.

How powerful can such toxins be? Just look at what happened to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, contaminated when they were dropped into storm drains as babies. Well, OK--that’s just fiction. But the fact is that preventing ocean contamination should be a major, year-round concern. Even in hard times, a little public awareness can help keep storm drains from being receptacles of contaminants.

A new study by UCLA found that an estimated 160 toxic chemicals--many of them known or suspected carcinogens--flow daily through storm drains into Santa Monica Bay, the home of Southern California’s most popular beaches. The study, commissioned by American Oceans Campaign, the City of Santa Monica and Environment Now, identified a wider range of chemical pollutants than had been previously analyzed in the bay, long known as a site of toxic contamination.

Most of the attention and pollution remedies have been directed at sewage plants; storm drains have been studied little. Now it turns out that Santa Monica Bay levels of some carcinogens from storm drains are above those allowed in other situations under the California Ocean Plan, which sets standards for California coastal areas. Storm drains are not covered in the plan. Perhaps they should be--a matter for the State Water Resources Board to consider.

Meanwhile, cities in Los Angeles County that feed into the Santa Monica Bay watershed should be complying with the 1990 requirement that they file a storm water management plan. Even if implementation must be delayed because of tight budgets, cities could at least embark on educational efforts to drive home the point that people can help keep the ocean clean even when they are many miles away from the shoreline.