Crystal Cove Project Draws Closer Scrutiny

Two powerful agencies are demanding closer scrutiny of Irvine Co.’s plan to build 800 homes above pristine Crystal Cove State Park, saying lower-level boards may have improperly granted water-quality concessions to the developer.

Runoff from the project would go into two creeks that flow across state beaches into the ocean.

Alexis Strauss, a top official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, wrote to state and regional water boards this week that their waiver of a water-quality permit “raises issues both technical and legal that I believe warrant further discussion.”

In a letter dated Monday, Strauss, director of the water division for the EPA’s southwest region, wrote: “I ask the state of California to take no further action until we can review and resolve the legal issues.”

Separately, the California Coastal Commission voted Tuesday to hold a full hearing on the project in December, saying there are “substantial issues” as to whether Orange County planning officials improperly approved Irvine Co.’s plans for handling runoff from the controversial housing project between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar.

Those issues include plans for drainage construction in the state park, adding water pipes and a detention basin in federally protected wetlands and drainage courses, and to create a fire road through endangered grasslands.

Across Southern California, concerns are growing about urban runoff from lawn fertilizers, pet waste, battery fluid and other pollutants into storm drains, potentially causing major coastal pollution. Crystal Cove State Park includes one of the largest remaining pieces of natural coastal terrain in the region. The ocean water and reefs there are designated as an area of special biological significance under the California Ocean Plan.

But the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has jurisdiction over parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, issued a water-quality waiver for the project on Sept. 30 after an attorney for the state Water Resources Control Board said the Ocean Plan does not apply to the Irvine Co. project because it would channel runoff into two creeks, not directly into the ocean. The EPA letter objected to those decisions.

Strauss did not return calls Tuesday seeking comment.

Irvine Co. officials would not comment on the EPA letter or the water board waiver. They had already agreed to the Coastal Commission’s request for a full hearing, and company officials said they are already working with the Coastal Commission’s staff to make any necessary changes to get the project approvals back on track.

“We continue to believe this project is one of the best examples on the California coast of quality implementation of a coastal development program,” Carol Hoffman, vice president of entitlement with the Irvine Co., said Tuesday. “We want to cooperate.”

But environmentalist critics said the types of permits sought by the company and the timing of decisions by the two water boards raise serious questions.

“It’s outrageous,” said David Beckman, a senior attorney and water-issues specialist for the Los Angeles office of the national Natural Resources Defense Council. Beckman said he was especially angered by the state water board attorney’s statement that the Ocean Plan does not apply. That came less than two weeks after the regional board recommended denying Irvine Co.’s request for a waiver. After receiving the attorney’s opinion, the regional board reversed itself and issued the waiver.

“This is a question of a developer trying to jam the process with political muscle,” Beckman said Tuesday. “In less than two weeks--that’s light speed for these agencies--the state board told the regional board the Ocean Plan did not apply. That is a very suspicious chain of events.”

The Irvine Co., he said, “got some attention real, real quick. They got a problem fixed real quick. I’ve never seen anything happen that fast with these boards. . . . I think the EPA’s message is that looking the other way in a situation like this is a violation of the Clean Water Act.”

Walt Pettit, executive director of the state Water Quality Control Board, was one of the officials to whom the EPA letter was addressed, and he agreed that “it’s a strong letter.”

He said Strauss probably worded the statement the way she did because the state attorney’s opinion “appears to be short timing, and it’s a controversial project, and there’s been a lot of confusion about it.”

But he said of the EPA: “We work with these folks all the time, and we’ll sort through it.”

Pettit noted that the state water board has not taken any formal action on the Crystal Cove project, only sent the regional board the attorney’s opinion. Nor would it take any action, he said, unless a member of the public appealed the waiver to the state board within 30 days.

Pettit said of the timing of the state board attorney’s opinion and the regional board’s change of position: “I don’t know that it was unusually fast. It’s faster than some and slower than some. Obviously Irvine Co. is a big organization, but we feel we could deal with it.”

He said he did not feel improperly pressured or influenced by the developer, which is the county’s largest landholder and whose directors include former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer with the regional water board, said his agency will confer with the EPA’s Strauss as soon as possible.

“A letter like this, I guess I would say, is a little unusual but not unprecedented,” he said. “We think, based on the letter, that the EPA doesn’t fully understand the facts.”

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Runoff Under Scrutiny

A pair of federal and state agencies have raised new environmental concerns about rainwater and irrigation water running off a new 800-home development going up above Crystal Cove State Park.

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Source: The Irvine Co.