Wilson OKs Bay Cleanup Plan, but Obstacles Remain : Pollution: Dispute among environmentalists and a probe headed by Senate committee leader Tom Hayden threatens proposal.

Despite approval Thursday by Gov. Pete Wilson, a long-awaited strategy to clean up Santa Monica Bay faces formidable obstacles because of a rift between environmentalists and rebukes from state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who heads a legislative committee that has begun investigating the plan.

The plan--which outlines priorities for spending $67 million on repairing one of the Los Angeles area’s most popular and beleaguered natural resources--was conceived last spring after five years of consensus building among warring factions of business representatives, environmentalists, government regulators and scientists.

On Thursday, Wilson endorsed the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project’s action plan “without condition,” calling it a vital, ambitious and broad approach to reduce pollution and restore the ecology of the bay, which stretches along 50 miles of Los Angeles County coast. The plan awaits approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and funding from the state Legislature.

The Santa Monica Bay project “reinforces my belief in the effectiveness of bringing together industry, government, conservationists and the general public to create cost-effective solutions to environmental problems,” Wilson said in a letter sent Thursday to EPA Administrator Carol Browner.

However, the blueprint for bay cleanup has divided local environmentalists. Some call it a half-hearted effort that could worsen ocean pollution, while others say it is a pragmatic approach given the difficulty of the task.

Hayden, chairman of the Senate’s natural resources committee, said he wants the plan either strengthened or dumped into “the dustbin of history” after hearing the concerns of some environmentalists at a four-hour hearing Thursday in Santa Monica.

“While I remain open to argument, it is my judgment that the plan does not live up to expectations,” Hayden said. “It fails to adequately address many of the most serious sources of bay pollution.”

The senator lambasted the committee that drafted the plan for giving more votes to members from industries and state regulators--whom he blamed for the bay’s problems--than to environmental and scientific groups.

Environmentalists say the plan targets urban runoff and wetlands restoration, but goes easy on the bay’s industrial polluters--most notably Chevron, Los Angeles International Airport and two power plants.

“It puts a Band-Aid on a gaping wound and makes everybody believe that’s enough. Unfortunately, it probably has poison within the Band-Aid,” said Terry Tamminen of Santa Monica BayKeeper, a citizens program that monitors threats to the bay.

However, members of Heal the Bay and the American Oceans Campaign--which helped draft the plan--defended the result.

“If all (the proposals) were implemented, the bay would be much better off than it is now,” said Mark Gold, a senior scientist at Heal the Bay. “There are a lot of very, very positive recommendations, but there are certainly some shortcomings.”

U.S. EPA Western Regional Administrator Felicia Marcus--a former leader of Heal the Bay--joined Wilson in supporting the plan, saying it has widespread support and urging Hayden to endorse it and seek creative sources of funding.

State and local officials and environmentalists have been struggling for almost 20 years to find ways to improve the condition of the bay, where swimmers and aquatic life are threatened by a mix of urban runoff and industrial pollution.

The plan contains about 250 suggestions, emphasizing 73 as priorities, including $9 million to hire more city and county staff to manage storm water runoff, $3.5 million to educate small businesses about pollution prevention, $5 million to restore the Ballona Wetlands and $1 million to investigate illegal sewage connections.

But it does not offer recommendations about Chevron’s oil tankers off El Segundo, a proposed oil pipeline, commercial sale of contaminated fish or how to handle the millions of pounds of the pesticide DDT that pollute the waters off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Although about $22 million for the plan could come from private donors and government grants, there is no known source for another $44.5 million that is needed, said Catherine Tyrrell, the project’s director and a state water quality official.

Thursday’s hearing was largely a forum for Hayden, a longtime environmentalist, to denounce the plan and the state’s Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for being “too cozy with the polluters.”