Moorpark Breaks Ranks, Spurns Pollution Program : Government: The city takes a stand against unfunded federal mandates. It may face heavy fines.

Flouting state and federal rules, the Moorpark City Council has refused to pay for a costly program to eliminate pollution from city streets--saying the program is a wasteful and expensive unfunded mandate.

Rather than assess homeowners to fund the county’s National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, the council chose to violate its own pollution discharge permit and step squarely into the national debate on mandates passed on to local government without funding.

While the violation could open the city up to heavy fines and lawsuits for noncompliance with state and federal clean water laws, city officials said at a meeting Wednesday night that they were not going to pay for the “unnecessary and wasteful” program.

“Let the Feds come after little Moorpark,” City Councilman John Wozniak said. “Nobody should have to pay this, and what happens if nobody pays. . .? (The assessment) could be a penny and I would still vote no.”

Moorpark is the first city in Ventura County to opt out of the program.

Last year homeowners in the 10 cities and unincorporated areas of Ventura County contributed about $3 million through a Ventura County Flood Control District assessment.

Moorpark paid $177,000 using money from its general fund and gas fund taxes, instead of turning to homeowners for the money.

This year city officials said they will pay nothing.

“The time has come for us to stop funding this entirely,” Councilman Scott Montgomery said.

Montgomery said city officials would send a letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and let him know that they were taking a stand against unfunded federal mandates. On the state and federal levels, lawmakers have decried the practice of passing on new mandates to local governments without passing on the money to pay for them.

Despite being warned that the city could face stiff fines for not complying with the regulations, the City Council voted unanimously in favor of pulling out of the program.

“At least we’ll get some attention,” Mayor Paul Lawrason said.

The move came as a surprise to state and county water officials.

“I think it’s a dumb idea,” said Alex Sheydayi, deputy director of the county’s Flood Control District. “If they don’t want to be a part of our program, that is their prerogative. But the whole idea with doing all this together was to save money. It just seems to me they are opening themselves up to a lot of problems.”

Under the federal Clean Water Act, all cities and unincorporated areas of the county must have permits to discharge pollution into local waterways, even if that pollution comes from street runoff and storm drains.

Experts say that most of the ocean pollution near the shore comes from such things as oil residues on city streets, pesticides used on agricultural fields and even household toxics that wash untreated into storm drains during rains. The federal program is meant to reduce that pollution by stopping it at its source.

Officials in Ventura County decided three years ago that instead of applying for permits individually, the cities would join together to apply for a permit and save money.

Although Councilman Montgomery held up the specter of Draconian measures required under the law, the work the county has done so far includes simply taking an inventory of all the storm drains across the county. The work has also focused on education and such things as stenciling “Do Not Dump” signs on storm drains.

Sheydayi said the education work will go a long way toward reducing pollution from city streets.

Under the guidelines of the local discharge permits, which are reviewed by the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board, the cities and the county must show that they are taking action to reduce storm water pollution.

Mark Pumford, chief of the region’s storm water regulation unit, said that so far the work done by the county has kept Moorpark in compliance.

If Moorpark violates the terms of that permit, then the Water Quality Control Board can levy fines of between $1,000 and $10,000 per day, Pumford said.

And if the city is found to be out of compliance with its discharge permit, it could also be sued by a private group, and--under the Clean Water Act--face fines of up to $25,000 a day.

Nothing will likely happen until the next annual review of the county permits in September, Pumford said.

“Then if we find Moorpark in violation we’ll send them a letter notifying them about what they have to do to get in compliance,” he said.