Cities, Businesses Denounce Urban Runoff Control Plan

A coalition of cities, builders and gas station representatives urged the state Wednesday to reject a stringent plan to limit urban runoff, arguing that its costs would far exceed potential improvements to water quality.

At a two-day hearing before the state Water Resources Control Board in Torrance, the group began its appeal of a hotly contested measure that would require all major new developments, from strip malls to housing tracts, to collect or filter rainwater flowing from roofs and pavement.

The new standards were approved in January by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board, a branch of the state agency. The plan, which must pass muster with the state board, was intended to keep the coast from becoming more polluted as the population grows.

Environmentalists and federal regulators--which have long accused the water quality board of not adequately protecting the beaches--have hailed the measure as a first step in intercepting the oily waste, metal residue, pesticides, human viruses and bacteria that flow off pavement and contaminate the coast.

“The beaches are the identity of Southern California,” Alexis Strauss, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional water division in San Francisco, told the board. “More people go to the beaches in Southern California than in the rest of the country combined. . . . If the beaches are closed, that’s a serious problem.”

But in their opening statements, representatives of the 33 cities and numerous industries fighting the measure argued that the standards could place unfair financial burdens on them, repelling new business with little or no results to show for them.

Representatives of the Western States Petroleum Assn., for example, said gas station owners would have to build storm-water catches that would inevitably collect spilled gasoline, creating a danger of explosion and making cleanup more difficult.

Builders said the plan would exacerbate an existing housing crisis in the county and make it especially difficult to build affordable housing and redevelopment projects.

Larry Forester, mayor pro tem of Signal Hill, said construction of a new 144-unit senior housing project there could come to a halt. “It’s a death knell,” he said. “There is no way that it can physically or financially be.”

The petitioners also argued that the regional board violated its own provisions by not working with cities to develop the standards.

Their opponents, including representatives of the National Resources Defense Council, and the regional water board, are expected to lay out most of their case today.

The runoff standards would apply to all new commercial projects of more than 100,000 square feet, as well as parking lots with 25 or more spaces, gas stations, auto repair garages, restaurants of at least 5,000 square feet and subdivisions of at least 10 houses.

Developers could use a range of methods to collect or filter at least 0.75 inch of rain that falls within 24 hours. They could create detention ponds or install filters in curbside storm drains. Another option would be to plant grassy swales so runoff can seep into the ground.

Rosemead Mayor Margaret Clark said filtering such water into the ground could cause further pollution to the aquifers. “Are we trading our ground water quality for surface water quality?” she asked.