Tollway Runoff Worries Laguna Beach

Badly clogged storm drains along the controversial San Joaquin Hills toll road might be sending untreated runoff across Laguna Beach’s popular Main Beach, according to worried city officials.

Caltrans officials, while insisting that the storm drain system is being maintained, revealed that for more than a year they have been quietly investigating whether all 42 storm-water drains along the 17.5-mile, $1.3-billion toll road are working properly.

Caltrans, along with Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies officials who oversaw construction of the road, acknowledged this week they knew shortly after the tollway opened that El Nino storms had damaged the drainage system in Laguna Beach. The current problems were outlined by Laguna Beach’s environmental specialist, Michael Phillips, in a report to the city manager. He described a “disturbing tour” last month with city engineers and Caltrans maintenance workers of the road’s pollution runoff treatment facilities at El Toro and Laguna Canyon roads.

“What we found is a system that is not being maintained by Caltrans,” Phillips wrote. “In other words, these filtering systems are not filtering runoff pollutants, which ultimately lead to . . . Main Beach. According to Caltrans staffers, the system is too easy (sic) inundated with silt, and is impossible to maintain properly. They said it cost them almost $1 million to maintain eight of the units.”

Urban runoff, a toxic brew of rain or other water mixed with auto waste, pesticides and animal droppings that flows into creeks and storm drains, is increasingly seen as a threat to California’s fragile coastal waters.

The toll road basins are supposed to catch the runoff, then drain it through ponds and other filters to separate pollutants from water.

Caltrans spokeswoman Beth Beeman could not immediately say whether untreated runoff from the toll road was reaching the beach. She disputed Phillips’ report of shoddy maintenance, saying the road’s entire drainage and filtration system has been properly maintained on a regular basis.

“What’s really important here is that all the filters continue to be maintained by Caltrans,” she said.

Still, she said that in mid-1999 Caltrans assembled a team of experts and hired an independent consultant to review the entire drainage system. The in-depth study was not prompted by any irregularities, she said.

Phillips said he could not comment on his Nov. 29 report. But the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, a state agency based in Riverside, said a team of investigators would be sent to take a closer look by today.

“That tollway is very new, and I’m very interested in knowing if discharges have resulted from improperly designed drainage systems that aren’t performing the way they should be,” John Robertus, the board’s executive officer, said Wednesday. “Hopefully, it is built properly and just clogged up.”

Laguna Beach officials want something done now.

“They’re filled up with gunk,” Mayor Paul Freeman said. “I don’t know whether it’s a function of design or maintenance. But they flat out aren’t working. So they’re going to have to fix them.”

Caltrans maintains the road, designed by the Transportation Corridor Agencies.

The problems could further cloud the record of the San Joaquin Hills toll road and two others built by the quasi-public Transportation Corridor Agencies over fierce opposition from local communities and environmentalists.

“This community was guaranteed when that project went in that not only would we have flood control detention basins, but also that the pollution coming off that highway would be caught in ponds and the water cleansed before it was released,” said Wayne Baglin, a Laguna Beach city councilman who also is chairman of the San Diego regional water board.

James Lenhart, vice president of engineering and research at Stormwater Management Inc. in Portland, said his company designed a key part of the filtration system and it was done properly. He said they did not oversee its design.

Both Caltrans and the Transportation Corridor Agencies acknowledged this week they knew shortly after the tollway opened that El Nino storms had damaged the drainage system in Laguna Beach.

Beeman said those problems, at detention ponds and underground tanks in Laguna Beach near sites along Laguna Canyon Road, El Toro Road and Aliso Creek Road, took at least six months to fix.

She could not say whether polluted runoff flowed from the toll road to the ocean during that time. But she said a test afterward of all 42 sites “determined them to be operational.”

The storms struck right after the toll road opened and before shrubs and other vegetation planted as erosion controls had a chance to mature and shield the ground.

Without that protection, dirt along the highway was exposed to massive flooding and was carried into detention ponds and underground tanks designed to purge pollutants before they head to sea.

James Brown, the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ director of environmental planning, design and construction, said the project met all specifications set by federal, state and local permitting agencies.

Transportation Corridor Agencies spokeswoman Lisa Telles repeated her previous statement that the agency is responsible only for collecting tolls, and that it is up to Caltrans to maintain the roads.

Caltrans said the toll road--like others across the state--was not built to withstand a 100-year storm.

“The statewide standard is a 25-year storm,” Beeman said.

The state’s chief hydrologist, Maurice Roos, agreed. “A 100-year storm is a very rare event,” Roos said, suggesting that it doesn’t make sense to spend the “bundle of money” it would cost to build such a system.

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Times staff writer Seema Mehta and correspondent Sharon Nagy contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Under Study

Caltrans is looking at whether the drainage system designed to filter storm water runoff from the San Joaquin Hills toll road works properly. How the system is intended to work:

1. Runoff from road empties into drain

2. Sediment settles to bottom of holding pond

3. Filter removes oils, grease, metals

4. Runoff flows into waterway, then ocean

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times

Source: James Lenhart, Stormwater Management Inc.