Studies Find Many More Sources of Coastal Pollution

Hundreds more pipes are discharging bacteria-laden pollutants into the Santa Monica Bay than previously known, according to an environmental group that spent years tallying them along the 46-mile stretch of coastline.

In addition, toxic metals regularly fall from the smoggy skies of Los Angeles onto the ground and then get washed into the bay by rainstorms, a group of government agencies says.

These two studies, both released on Wednesday, show that the bay, one of the nation’s most contaminated coastal waters, faces more sources of pollution than have been scrutinized in the past.

“To most of us, it’s obvious the bay is polluted,” said Steve Fleischli, executive director of the nonprofit Santa Monica BayKeeper. “The new information is identifying the sources. As we learn to pinpoint them, we can figure out what to do about it.”

With a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and 150 volunteers, BayKeeper mapped 342 pipes and storm drains that dump directly into the bay. Previously, most studies pointed to only 70 or 80 major drains.

Three years of testing by BayKeeper determined that more than half of the water flowing from pipes and drains exceeded state health standards for E. coli bacteria, often an indication of untreated sewage.

During wet weather, 72% of the pipes and drains flowing into the bay exceeded the health standards for human contact.

The smog-to-water link has been documented from the Rockies to the Great Lakes to eastern Canada, but this is the first time researchers have explored it over such a large portion of Southern California.

‘A Clear Link’ Between Air and Water Pollution

Though bacteria carried by storm water pose a threat to human health, toxic metals, falling from the air, are toxic to marine life. Their risk to human health is not well understood, said Ken Schiff of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.

Schiff and Keith Stolzenbach, a engineer with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment, are among the authors of the study of how air pollution hovering over Southern California winds up in Santa Monica Bay.

Smokestacks and tailpipes release about 732 tons of lead, chromium, copper, zinc and nickel daily across the Southland. Using pollutant measurements and computer models, the investigators figured that much of those emissions eventually reach the bay.

About 20 tons of zinc--43% of the amount that enters the bay annually--comes from air pollution. About half the chromium and virtually all the lead reaching coastal waters comes from air pollution as well, the study says.

Most of those metals and others wash into the ocean during storms, but some airborne pollutants are directly deposited in the water when offshore winds blow them out to sea.

“The magnitude of the problem is substantial,” said Mark Gold, executive director for Heal the Bay. “It’s a piece of the puzzle that’s been missing and it clearly makes the link between air pollution and water pollution.”

Heavy metals are just one indicator of the multitude of airborne particles that rain down every day from smog. Future research, the scientists say, is likely to show that other airborne pollutants--including pesticides, hydrocarbons and nitrates--also wind up in the ocean.

Stopping airborne fallout from polluting the ocean promises to be a difficult task. Unlike other places where this happens, many of the pollutants from the Los Angeles region come from lots of small, dispersed sources, including construction machinery, small businesses, aircraft, road dust and tire wear.

Those sources are difficult to control and many operate outside the regulatory dragnet California has imposed to cut smog.

Stopping bacterial pollution, borne by runoff, has also proved to be difficult. Some of it comes from raw sewage spills, which can be prevented by unclogging and repairing sewer lines.

But much of it is washed down from lawns, gutters and streets as a noxious brew of animal waste, pesticides, motor oil and other spilled materials.

BayKeeper has sought to catalog every drain that carries such waterborne waste to the Santa Monica Bay.

Water Quality Board Appreciates the Help

Besides photographing each discharge pipe, BayKeeper staff has used satellite technology and mapping systems supplied by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to mark precisely where each source of pollution is located.

“It’s very helpful,” said Jon Bishop, a manager at the regional board who has pored over Bay-Keeper’s data. “In general, we support citizen monitoring groups and we work with them. They get out to the beach a lot more often than we can.”

Bishop said state officials at the regional board are incorporating some of BayKeeper’s data into an upcoming plan to reduce the load of bacteria allowed into the bay. An announcement is expected next week.

He said state officials will be asking city and county officials to account for each pipe and storm drain mapped by BayKeeper.

“We are not sure where they come from,” Bishop said. Each local government, he said, has the responsibility to keep track of all storm drains and issue permits.

Drains without property permits, he said, could be shut down. All of them, he said, will have to meet ever-tightening rules on bacterial contaminant.

Such standards were set for swimming in salt or fresh water, not effluent from pipes. But Fleischli points out that children often frolic in pools or streams of storm-drain water as it empties onto the beach.

Pipe Count Numbers ‘Just Kept Going Up’

BayKeeper’s report is actually a culmination of five years’ work that began in 1996, when Terry Tamminen founded the nonprofit group and issued a proclamation called “The Great Storm Drain Undercount.”

“We knew that there were more storm drains than we saw on the official maps,” Tamminen said. “Many of them were mysterious. They disappeared into the hills. Yet when it rained, they would flow.”

Over the years, BayKeeper’s Angie Bera led volunteers, including retirees and students from Palisades High School, to take pictures and later map each pipe dumping onto the beach. Some are as small as 4 inches in diameter; others are big enough to stand inside.

“We were shocked,” Bera said. “The numbers just kept going up.”

Many other storm drains discharge into Ballona and Malibu creeks, which carry the most urban runoff and pollution into the bay.

David Beckman, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that by pinpointing all of the drains, BayKeeper has shown cities the way to tackle polluted urban runoff, one pipe at a time.

No longer, Beckman said, “can the regional water board and the cities say pollution is so broad and overwhelming they don’t know where to begin.”