WESTSIDE / COVER STORY : A Healing Process

In the 1980s, they clashed over the health of Santa Monica Bay--Hyperion, the giant sewage plant that discharges into the bay, and Heal the Bay, the environmental group that has pressed Hyperion to clean up its act. In recent years, the battling gave way to cooperation as Hyperion embarked on an ambitious project to intensify its treatment of ocean-bound sewage. But the harmony could soon fade. With the new Republican Congress working to relax environmental standards, Hyperion’s drive to upgrade treatment may--in a strict legal sense--prove unnecessary. This is the first of two parts on Heal the Bay and Hyperion on the 10th anniversary of their first tangle.

The yellow Los Angeles County sign on Mark Gold’s office wall reads “Beach closed. Avoid water contact.”

It’s a sign that’s posted when toxics from a failed sewer line pour into the ocean near shore, or the level of other pollutants creeps too high to guarantee human safety.

To Gold, executive director of the Santa Monica environmental organization Heal the Bay, the sign also symbolizes one of the group’s early successes: After Los Angeles’ worst sewage spill in recent history occurred in 1987, Heal the Bay helped set up a more efficient system of pollution monitoring that allows beaches to be closed in minutes.

But as 500 volunteers and a 14-member staff have celebrated the group’s 10th anniversary this month, some of Heal the Bay’s other efforts have come under attack. Suddenly, the organization is scrambling to fight old battles just when it was gearing up to focus on new challenges.

In 1986, Heal the Bay helped pressure the city of Los Angeles to stop emptying sludge--highly contaminated sewage--into the ocean and to begin better treatment of waste water. But moves in Washington to modify the Clean Water Act could release the city from fulfilling its obligation to treat all the sewage collected at its plant near El Segundo.

Another obstacle for Heal the Bay’s plan to clean up Santa Monica Bay was a March court ruling that threw out a $24-million lawsuit against chemical companies that disposed of millions of pounds of the pesticide DDT off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The two unexpected hurdles have sent everyone at Heal the Bay reeling. Gold is exasperated.

“We’ve had a tough three weeks,” he told supporters who gathered recently for a 10th anniversary party in the San Fernando Valley.

The setbacks also frustrate Gold’s mentor, Heal the Bay founder Dorothy Green.

An affluent Westwood liberal who got her first taste of activism in the civil rights and anti-war protests of the 1960s, Green began focusing on the environmental movement 25 years ago. Her concern about water pollution was heightened when her brother was splashed with raw sewage as he worked on construction near Ballona Creek and she realized what was going into the sea.

In 1985 when Green formed Heal the Bay, the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant of Los Angeles was dumping 400 million to 500 million gallons of sludge about five miles offshore every day.

Green and a core group of environmentalists would meet in the living room of her Tudor home. Their goal: to make Santa Monica Bay a body of water where people could swim safely and fishermen could eat their catch.

Heal the Bay has been monitoring Hyperion ever since. In 1986, the city finally agreed to introduce secondary treatment at the plant after settling a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As of this year, the secondary treatment has drastically reduced the amount of suspended solids sent into the ocean and Hyperion is discharging the cleanest water it has in decades.

Over the years, sensitive species of brittle stars, shrimps and crabs were killed by exposure to pollution, Gold said. Juvenile dover sole were infested with tumors. And the sediments in the waters surrounding the Hyperion sludge field bubbled with hydrogen sulfide.

Now species have begun to recolonize. Marine animals such as pinnipeds and cetaceans seem to have increased and diversified. Solemya clams, an indicator of severe pollution, have left the sludge field area. And the number of sole with tumors has decreased.

Swimming and surfing in Santa Monica Bay is much safer now than it has been historically, said Jack Petralia, director of environmental protection for the city’s Department of Health Services. “In the ‘50s, we were swimming in raw sewage,” he said. “The only treatment then was that the water passed through a strain.”

But the work at Hyperion is only half finished.

Heal the Bay science and policy analyst Roger Gorke said that about 50% of the waste at Hyperion receives secondary treatment, which involves introducing oxygen to grow bacteria that in turn remove solids, (“where the good bugs eat the bad bugs”). The city needs to have an additional $60 million to $85 million million for equipment to treat 100% of the waste--a requirement of its legal settlement with the EPA.

Cleaning up the bay has had support from local residents over the years. More than 78% of voters passed bond measures in 1987 to fix Los Angeles’ sewage treatment system.

But if the Republican-led Congress passes a proposed amendment to the Clean Water Act, plant operators will be able to apply for a 10-year waiver from adopting full secondary treatment.

Under the amendment, Los Angeles would not have to complete its work at Hyperion for a decade and then could reapply for another waiver. Nor would the county have to expand to secondary treatment at the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Carson, which discharges about 330 million gallons of waste daily seven miles offshore from the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

City officials say they support secondary treatment, but they have not officially opposed the amendment.

Meanwhile, Heal the Bay is up in arms. “Everything we thought was behind us could now be undone,” Gorke said.

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The organization’s dismay over the possible unraveling of the Clean Water Act came on top of a court ruling that stopped plans to remove the world’s largest DDT deposit, located off Palos Verdes Peninsula.

U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk dismissed a four-year case over the DDT contamination because, he said, it was filed too late. Government prosecutors had sought to collect several hundred million dollars to remove the DDT deposit, which will take generations for the ocean to break down.

Interest by Gold and Gorke in cleaning up Santa Monica Bay is personal. Both grew up in Los Angeles, swimming and surfing in the ocean.

With a doctorate in environmental science and engineering from UCLA, Gold, 31, was the first paid staff member hired by Heal the Bay.

Once known for his in-your-face style of activism, a calmer Gold remains driven to succeed amid this decade’s political backlash against environmentalism. But, obsessed with the often gloomy headlines and the daunting task ahead, Gold feels so pessimistic at times that his staff refer to him as “Mr. Half-Empty.”

Gorke, 28, who has been with the organization for four years, received his degree in aquatic biology from UC Santa Barbara. His day can shift between working on plans to get the county to clean its storm drains to teaching a local resident the importance of recycling motor oil. Volunteers and the remaining 12 paid staff members who work among the marine posters and murals at the organization’s offices on 5th Street in Santa Monica are in their twenties.

They organize and participate in cleanups where hundreds of schoolchildren scurry to pick up litter from the beaches. They patrol the city’s gutters, using stencils cut from pizza boxes to paint Heal the Bay’s fish logo and “No dumping: This drains to ocean” alongside storm drains.

They write newsletters and try to capitalize on the youth market by putting together Rock the Bay concerts to raise money. And they help come up with slogans like the one for this summer: “Hey, Butthead, the world is not your ashtray.”

The Santa Monica headquarters resembles a huge house shared by college students, all of whom have the same zealous love for the ocean.

With more than 10,000 members, Heal the Bay is one of the largest environmental groups in Los Angeles County, with an annual budget of about $1 million, most of which comes from government grants, corporate sponsorship and member donations.

Heal the Bay is well-respected among other major players in the environmental movement, But criticism came recently from state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica). Although he has historically supported the organization, he faulted Heal the Bay for accepting a contribution of about $2,000 from Chevron Corp. last year. Heal the Bay’s board has since made it a formal policy not to accept money from oil companies.

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Chevron is one of the many bay polluters that hug the coastline in a long, gray strip south of Marina del Rey, including Los Angeles International Airport, three power plants and Hyperion.

In Marina del Rey, tons of contaminated waste are carried by storm waters into the navigation channel and must be dredged out by the Army Corps of Engineers. Thousands of recreational boaters contribute other pollutants to the ocean.

In its efforts to reduce industrial and residential pollution, Heal the Bay has tackled contamination in the Los Angeles River, Marina del Rey, the Malibu Creek Watershed, and, more recently, the county storm drain system. All are waterways that feed into the bay.

Gold said he will be conducting a study on the effects of urban pollution on swimmers this summer, but he personally swims in the bay and believes it is safe to do so. And although he’s not a seafood lover, he does occasionally eat fish caught in the bay--unless it’s a species that dwells near the ocean floor, where bacteria counts can be 10 times higher near flowing storm drains.

Also this summer, Heal the Bay is heading back to the beaches, selling T-shirts and gathering signatures on petitions from the grass-roots--the beach-goers who first supported the organization a decade ago.

Although the group’s anniversary motto is “Halfway to healing the bay,” Gold said the recent setbacks have taught the group that it may always have a watchdog role in stopping polluters.

“If we didn’t have the history of success that we’ve had, it would be really hard to remain positive,” he said. “But it’s a clear task: We’re trying to heal the bay.”