Group Sues to Stop Potential Flow of Nitrates Into Bay

Two months after winning a four-year court fight that prevents the pumping of waste water into Upper Newport Bay, environmentalists have geared up for another battle over potential contamination.

This time the group Defend the Bay is challenging a regional water board’s decision that would allow pumping of 1.3 million gallons a day of ground water carrying nitrates from farmland into the fragile wetlands.

“We win one but we can’t take the gloves off,” said group member Allan Beek. “Seems everybody wants to dump something out there. It’s a handy place.”

Beek’s group filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to revoke a Regional Water Quality Control Board order that gives contractors for the Eastern Transportation Corridor permission to discharge nitrate-contaminated water into Back Bay. Nitrate contamination typically comes from fertilizers or animal waste.

At issue is a stretch of the toll road near Peters Canyon Wash in Irvine, which is situated below the water table. To build the road, Silverado Constructors must pump out millions of gallons of ground water, which the regional water board ruled could be flushed through Peters Canyon Wash and into the Newport Beach bay.

Toll road officials contend that under natural circumstances, the water would eventually end up in the bay on its own, trickling down San Diego Creek and into the ecosystem that is teeming with rare birds, mud flats and salt marshes. In exchange for allowing them to pump directly into the bay, agency officials have agreed to intercept the water and treat it first to lower the concentration of nitrates.

But Defend the Bay leaders dispute the agency’s findings, saying the water in question does not flow into the bay. In fact, attorney Mark Wolfe said, it flows the opposite way, with the stream from the bay feeding into the aquifer where the contaminated water is located.

“There are some serious scientific questions that have not been properly addressed here,” Wolfe said. “This permit went through so quickly, without any real regard to the facts, that we’re forced to take action.”

Officials with the county Transportation Corridor Agencies said Wednesday they had not yet seen the lawsuit and were unaware that the Jan. 23 regional water board decision was being challenged.

The filing is the latest move in the fight by Defend the Bay to prevent waste from being flushed into the bay. Members have long contended the waste water would include dangerous levels of heavy metals, phosphorous and organic materials, encourage the growth of algae and disrupt the fragile ecology of the salt marsh, where at least two species of protected birds nest and where fish and other animals make their home.

In October, an Orange County Superior Court judge sided with the environmentalists in their quest to stop the Irvine Ranch Water District from pumping millions of gallons of highly treated waste water into the bay. Judge Robert E. Thomas called “erroneous” the contention of the regional water board that the reclaimed water would benefit the bay.