Costly Steps Fail to Stem Urban Runoff

Despite heavy initial investments in high-tech devices to keep storm runoff clean, some Los Angeles County cities have experienced disappointing results so far in their fight against the grimy urban runoff emptying into the sea.

Now anti-pollution rules are about to get much more stringent. Regional water quality officials are drafting stricter limits on pollutants fouling the county’s creeks and beaches to be phased in over the next 12 years.

The changes have some city officials worried.

“I don’t know how we’re going to meet this requirement,” said Heather Lea Merenda, Calabasas’ storm water manager, as she surveyed a storm drain clogged with leaves. “It assumes I have control over everything that drains here.”

Her days are already spent battling stray cigarette butts and cars spewing oil, and it is only expected to get worse as turpentine, garbage and other debris washes into the drains.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to force regional officials in Los Angeles and Ventura counties to enact pollution limits, ending a lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the EPA. Those regional officials are now deciding what those limits should be.

How to meet them will be another issue.

Calabasas and Malibu have invested in systems designed to catch trash or clean storm water before it reaches the ocean, and both have met with problems.

Two years ago, Calabasas hired Merenda as its full-time storm water manager, the only one in the Malibu Creek watershed, a 110-square-mile area that drains into Santa Monica Bay. A few months later, officials installed a $300,000 device that is supposed to keep garbage from washing into Las Virgenes Creek, one of Malibu Creek’s tributaries.

But the device hasn’t worked as well as expected, hinting at the problems other cities may face. Despite Calabasas’ trash-trapping mechanism, a 20-foot-deep pit lined with mesh screens to catch debris, garbage is still creeping into the creek in other places. In September, volunteers hauled about half a ton of debris out of nearby sections of Las Virgenes Creek that are not covered by the device, Merenda said.

And even at that, the state-of-the-art device may be too big--and too expensive--for its function. City officials installed it in what could be considered one of the grubbiest spots in the city: at Las Virgenes and Agoura roads, near a cluster of fast-food restaurants and gas stations just off the Ventura Freeway. But even this litter-prone area has only yielded about half the trash the equipment is designed to handle.

Farther downstream, the city of Malibu has launched one of the most ambitious and expensive efforts to treat storm water in the Malibu Creek watershed. If it works, it would kill bacteria and viruses, a big step beyond merely screening out clumps of garbage.

But the demonstration project, a $1-million machine that disinfects storm drain runoff by bombarding it with ozone and ultraviolet light, got a rocky start.

The first attempt at installation, paid for largely by its manufacturer, failed when the machine sprang a leak on the eve of the ribbon-cutting ceremony. City officials are eagerly awaiting the delivery of a replacement, which is expected next week.

“I see the use of disinfecting as revolutionary,” said Malibu City Engineer Rick Morgan. “It’s the only thing that’s going to address the real pollutants of concern,” the pathogens that make swimmers and surfers sick.

In Malibu, urban runoff has helped make Surfrider Beach one of the most polluted shorelines in Southern California. Recent studies have found other culprits as well, including Malibu’s leaky septic tanks and the Tapia sewage treatment plant, which discharges treated waste water into Malibu Creek during the winter.

Los Angeles County suffers from one of the nation’s worst urban runoff problems. The federal Clean Water Act mandated controls on runoff 14 years ago, but Southern California has lagged behind in programs to divert pollution from the ocean.

Calabasas and many other cities are watching the Malibu effort. Morgan said he fields frequent calls from storm water officials around the region, all seeking solutions to the problem of urban runoff.

Even if the Malibu project succeeds, the machine may not be practical or affordable for hundreds of storm drains throughout the county. Some officials say that solving the runoff problem will require a massive behavior shift on the part of millions of people whose cars, lawns and pets are all contaminating the water.

Despite the setbacks, environmental regulators applaud the attempts of Calabasas and other cities to clean their storm water.

“I think we are a little bit late in trying to address the problems, but I welcome the leading efforts in those cities,” said Xavier Swamikannu, chief of the storm water program at the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. “There’s a start-up period where things can go wrong . . . but somebody has to lead the way.”