U.S. Considers Crackdown on County Runoff

Citing California’s failure to adequately protect its beach waters from pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering forcing the state to enforce urban runoff cleanup measures in Los Angeles County.

The EPA investigation is a response to a legal petition received Thursday from an influential environmental group. The Natural Resources Defense Council asked the EPA to remove the state’s authority to enforce runoff rules in Los Angeles County unless dramatic improvements are made within 90 days.

Speaking in unusually harsh terms, EPA officials agreed that California’s enforcement is inadequate and said they will investigate the specific charges in the petition.

The state’s program lacks critical resources, such as inspectors, for even minimal enforcement of runoff rules in Los Angeles County required under the Clean Water Act, said Alexis Strauss, director of the EPA’s regional water division in San Francisco.

“It is the most underfunded regulatory program we’ve ever worked on, and we’ve worked on a lot. It’s astonishing,” Strauss said. “This is one of our foremost environmental concerns in California.”

Strauss faulted the California Legislature and the governor’s office for “an unwillingness over the years to fund this program.” She said the EPA hopes to work with Gov. Gray Davis to fix the problems and would take control of the program only as a last resort.

Dennis Dickerson, executive officer of the state’s regional water board in Los Angeles, which oversees the program, acknowledged that he has a limited staff and budget but said it is unnecessary for the federal government to take over.

Experts say Southern California’s runoff pollution is the most severe in the nation. Storm drains flow directly to beaches, carrying voluminous runoff from streets and parking lots tainted with virus-laden raw sewage, pesticides, oil and toxic metals.

After heavy rains, Los Angeles County’s entire shoreline, from Malibu to Long Beach, is rendered unsafe and is closed to swimmers for several days. Even on dry summer days, water near rivers and channels contains disease-carrying germs and toxic compounds.

Since 1986, the federal Clean Water Act has prohibited allowing anything but rainwater to flow into storm drains. Municipalities are required to clean up runoff to “the maximum extent practicable” and business compliance is required. The EPA granted enforcement authority to the state of California.

But state records show that cleaning up runoff has been a low priority at the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. Thousands of industries, construction sites and cities in Los Angeles County let pollutants drain off streets and parking lots, but inspections and penalties are rare.

Dickerson said he has five staffers to oversee about 2,900 industries, 85 municipalities and 700 construction sites. The agency has calculated it needs four times as many.

Officials of the California Environmental Protection Agency would not comment Thursday on the petition, which they had not seen. But Cal-EPA spokesman Edd Fong said Davis has already added 180 positions statewide and has proposed another increase for the next year.

“We are beginning to turn things around,” Fong said. But little of the new money has focused on urban runoff. In the Los Angeles region, Dickerson said, only one staffer was added for runoff issues while the rest went to programs for traditional industrial pollution and underground gasoline tanks.

The petition includes numerous examples of California’s failures to enforce runoff rules.

“The program flunks in every single category,” said David Beckman, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It’s no wonder we have the worst urban runoff problem in the country,” he said. “The trash you find at the beach and the fact that beaches are often closed due to health concerns are directly related to the lack of regulation.”

The EPA’s investigation could take months. If Administrator Carol Browner finds California is improperly administering the program, the state then will have 90 days to correct the problems or face withdrawal of its authority, said Ann Nutt, a senior attorney at the EPA’s western regional office.

The petition comes as the Los Angeles regional board is taking its first steps toward enacting major runoff rules.

Last month, the board required large new developments in Los Angeles County to capture or treat runoff from the first three-quarters of an inch of rain during storms. Existing buildings face no mandate, but cities since last summer have been required to educate businesses and residents about practices to reduce runoff.

But EPA officials and environmentalists say the regional board does not have enough staff or resources to enforce the new development regulation or older programs.

Only 858 of 3,558 industrial plants regulated under the region’s storm-water permit were inspected between 1996 and 1999. The board took formal action to penalize 37 businesses or municipalities in the 2 1/2-year period, the petition says.

“At its current pace, it would take the [regional board] nearly 35 years to perform industrial site inspections at each facility in the region,” the petition says.

The petition for Los Angeles County is the first of its type in California and one of only a few nationally, Nutt said.