Rail Project and Activists Both Challenge Water Permits

The controversy over polluted water from the $2.4-billion Alameda Corridor project intensified Wednesday, when project officials and environmentalists challenged the project’s permits to release millions of gallons of ground water into the county’s waterways.

The builders of the new rail link to the county’s ports are appealing water quality limits set last month by the Regional Water Quality Control Board for ground water that contains lead, silver, mercury and copper, heavy metals that can harm aquatic life.

Officials of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority fear that they will violate their discharge permit when the project begins releasing up to 18 million gallons of water a day into Dominguez Channel in February, subjecting the agency to costly fines and cleanup efforts.

Resolving the dispute is important to the project, which needs to remove ground water during construction of a 20-mile toll road for trains between the harbor and freight yards near downtown Los Angeles. Any long delays could raise the project’s cost and hamper its ability to generate revenue from rail traffic.

“The restrictions and limitations placed on [the corridor authority’s] ground water discharge are not based on any existing law or regulations,” said James C. Hankla, the authority’s chief executive officer. “Not only is [the authority’s] ground water discharge more benign than tap water, [the authority] has agreed to clean up the water discharged into Dominguez Channel.”

The corridor authority and a host of environmental groups filed their appeals with the state Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento, a five-member panel appointed by the governor. The board’s attorneys will review the petitions and decide whether to submit them to the panel for consideration.

Environmentalists are contesting a Dec. 20 decision by the Regional Water Quality Control Board to ease pollution standards for the corridor authority so construction crews can dump ground water temporarily into Compton Creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. Those discharges are scheduled to end next month.

That decision came as a relief to the corridor agency, which ceased construction on a key part of the project for 10 days before the board took action. Corridor officials estimate that the pause cost about $500,000 a day.

Groups such as Heal the Bay, Santa Monica BayKeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council contend in their appeal that the original permits issued last fall and the board’s subsequent action to amend those permits are illegal.

They say the permits should not have been granted in the first place because water samples taken at the time showed that the corridor project was out of compliance with the Los Angeles River Basin Plan.

Once the permits were in hand, the corridor project continued to exceed water quality standards for salts, nutrients, sulfur, chloride and dissolved solids, materials that can harm aquatic life.

Citing government documents, environmentalists also point out that the water board’s staff--those closest to the corridor project--thought the permits should not have been issued under the circumstances.

“What kind of mentality is it that condones illegal past practices?” asked Steve Fleischli, executive director of Santa Monica BayKeeper. “Why is the agency issuing permit coverage when there are clear violations?”

Members of the Regional Water Quality Control Board concluded, however, that the permits were granted properly. Dennis Dickerson, the board’s executive director who has come under fire for issuing the original approvals, said, “The board’s action speaks for itself.”

He declined to comment on the corridor authority’s appeal, saying he has not seen a copy of it. He added that the state Water Resources Control Board is the appropriate entity to evaluate his agency’s actions.

The corridor authority wants to ease discharge requirements also set Dec. 20 for ground water containing lead, copper, silver and mercury. The authority says water released into Dominguez Channel will exceed the permit’s current limitations.

The authority’s appeal contends that the regional board set limits for heavy metals that are not contained in the Los Angeles River Basin Plan. They also say limits for heavy metals are not applicable to Dominguez Channel under new national rules for the release of toxic materials.

The appeal states that the corridor authority “has been aggrieved by the regional board’s action because it cannot discharge naturally occurring ground water without violating the terms of its permit.”

Corridor officials also say they have already spent $3 million for a pipeline from the corridor route on Alameda Street to Dominguez Channel, and might be subject to fines of up to $3,000 a day for violations of their permit.

The regional board was going to consider modifying the permit later this month, but the matter was removed from the agenda after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency complained that there was no scientific data yet to support the changes.

“This was of great concern to us,” said Robyn Stuber, an environmental scientist with the EPA in San Francisco. “It was not the way to go about making changes. It would have set a bad precedent.”

Stuber said the corridor authority is supposed to be doing a study to support the proposed modifications. She added that the types of things regulators are asking the authority to do will not delay the project.

But Hankla said the need for modifications came as a shock to the authority. “We thought we were going to have a permit to move into the Dominguez Channel,” he said. “That was why we built the pipeline in the first place. Now we have to go back one more time.”