Rail Project Violated Pollution Standards, Documents Show

Builders of the $2.4-billion Alameda Corridor have violated clean-water standards for the heavily polluted Los Angeles River Basin and have received permits to discharge ground water into a basin waterway even though regulators had indications that the project was not complying with those limits, government documents show.

The Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority is also seeking approval from the Regional Water Quality Control Board, a state agency, to release enormous amounts of ground water, some of it bearing potentially toxic copper, into the Dominguez Channel, one of the region’s most severely contaminated water courses.

The situation and the mounting concerns it has created among some environmental groups now threaten to delay construction of the new rail link for the county’s ports as it heads into its most critical phase--construction of a 10-mile concrete trench that will contain two train tracks. To build the project, ground water must be removed from the route and disposed of.

The California Regional Water Quality Control Board is scheduled to consider the matter today and eventually must decide whether to approve the corridor’s overall plan to release up to 18 million gallons of ground water and runoff per day from its construction sites.

“We are facing a key hurdle,” said Tim Buresh, construction manager for the corridor authority. “If we don’t get to de-water, there will be no excavation. If there is no excavation, we don’t have a project.”

Completing the rail phase of the route by April 2002 is critical for the corridor agency because delays could interfere with its ability to make interest payments on more than $1 billion in revenue bonds sold to investors to finance the 20-mile-long project along Alameda Street.

Board members will consider two discharge permits that were granted to the corridor several months ago for pipeline relocation at El Segundo and Greenleaf Boulevards in Compton, as well as a proposal to release construction-related ground water from the trench into Dominguez Channel over the next 18 months.

The permits for the El Segundo and Greenleaf sites allow the corridor agency to discharge up to 5.3 million gallons of ground water per day into Compton Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River.

Corridor officials obtained so-called general permits from the control board’s executive officer, Dennis Dickerson.

Excess Levels of Toxic Materials

Water quality regulators say that some of the discharge into Compton Creek has violated standards set by the Los Angeles River Basin Plan, which is designed to improve the quality of the urban waterway. Over the last several years, the Los Angeles River has become an issue of interest to conservationists, who want to restore the waterway.

Tests taken in September and October show that the corridor has exceeded basin plan levels for total dissolved solids, sulfate, chloride and nitrates--materials that can have an impact on aquatic life.

Board members will consider a cease and desist order and whether to temporarily raise the discharge levels for the corridor agency until Feb. 1. At that time, project officials want to shift all construction-related ground water to the Dominguez Channel via a new $3-million pipeline.

Environmentalists contend that Dickerson should never have issued general permits to such a large construction project. An individual permit, which requires a public hearing and board approval, would have been more appropriate, they say.

Representatives of Santa Monica BayKeeper and Heal the Bay say that the El Segundo and Greenleaf permits may have been granted illegally because the corridor authority did not meet the criteria in the first place.

General permit rules state that recipients shall not exceed water quality standards or violate any applicable water quality objective. According to water control board documents, initial tests of corridor wells before the El Segundo and Greenleaf permits were issued indicate that the project had exceeded basin plan limits in some samples.

“Our position is that the permit conditions are in violation of the federal Clean Water Act,” said Steve Fleischli, executive director of Santa Monica BayKeeper. “It was an abuse of power for the water board’s executive officer to allow the dumping of the last several months.”

Fleischli said BayKeeper, Heal the Bay and the Natural Resources Defense Council are considering a lawsuit against the water control board and the corridor authority. They want the corridor to consider cleanup options, something project officials say would be too costly for the project.

Dickerson said the general permits were granted properly to the corridor and that it is not uncommon for construction projects to get general permits on short notice from the board.

Basically, Dickerson said the corridor authority, like any general permit holder, is given a chance to comply with the regulations. If not, he added, violators can face cease and desist orders and possible enforcement actions.

At the time the permit was issued, Dickerson said, the corridor project did not threaten the objectives of the Los Angeles River Basin Plan because there appeared to be no impact on the river and Compton Creek.

Activists Urge Further Study

Environmentalists say, however, that more thorough studies are needed. They also contend that the water control board mistakenly let the corridor agency test for contaminant levels downstream from the point of discharge instead of at the point where ground water was released into Compton Creek. This would make it easier to comply with the basin plan and the permit.

Dickerson said a control board staff member raised questions about the situation and the corridor authority was required to test at the point of discharge Nov. 30. He acknowledged that the point of release is the place where tests are usually required.

Corridor officials are facing additional opposition from environmental groups on their plan to release all construction-related ground water into Dominguez Channel a few miles from the route. Members of the water quality board will consider approving a discharge permit for the proposal at their Dec. 20 meeting.

The waterway, which is a receptacle for urban and industrial wastes, runs mostly east of the corridor thorough Carson and Wilmington before it empties into the harbor near Terminal Island. Water quality regulators have designated the channel an “impaired water body” that has high levels of copper and lead.

Water quality and corridor officials say that ground water from the project will contain heavy metals, particularly copper, which can affect invertebrates, clam larvae, sea urchins and crustaceans in certain amounts. The situation is complicated by the fact that new national and state standards for heavy metals may go into effect in January.

Steve Weisberg, a toxicologist with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, said the levels the corridor might be discharging have been shown harmful to sensitive creatures in laboratory tests.

He cautioned, however, that toxicity depends on the amount of the dilution and the form of the copper. If dissolved in water, copper is more more easily absorbed by marine life than if it is attached to particles of other material.

“It is a difficult thing to predict,” Weisberg said. “But this does raise a red flag. They might consider other options to dispose of the ground water.”

Buresh contended that the costs of treating heavy metals is very high and that release of copper into Dominguez Channel should have no significant impact on marine life. He said that tests show some elevated levels of copper on the south end of the trench but that water quality improves greatly as one moves north.