Garbage Rule Is Disputed

Saying the goal is unrealistic, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to file a lawsuit challenging a state rule that requires the city to eventually keep all storm-drain trash from flowing into the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek.

Under the Water Resources Control Board regulation, which goes into effect later this year, the city faces fines if it does not reduce the amount of trash running into the river and creek by 10% annually, so that the waterways will be refuse-free in a decade.

“That is impossible,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. She said she would support some sort of “zero trash” goal, but only if it does not carry fines.

The council voted 9 to 5 to file the Superior Court lawsuit seeking to invalidate the rule. Under pressure from supporters of the regulation, the council also set a hearing next week to debate the issue.

The city has estimated it would cost $700 million to install trash screens on the drains. The screens would cut runoff pollution by 60% in five years, but would not keep all trash out, officials say.

Judith Wilson, director of Los Angeles’ Bureau of Sanitation, said the state rule would hold the city liable for trash that the wind blows into the water or is dumped by homeless people.

“We could be spending millions and millions of dollars and miss the requirement by a decimal point and be subject to enforcement action or a third-party lawsuit,” Wilson said.

Councilman Nate Holden said the rule “can’t make the water drinkable in 10 years, and if [it does], there will be no money left to do anything else in L.A.”

The regulation is now under routine review by the state Office of Administrative Law. It is expected to take effect in three to four months. During the first two years, the 10% reduction would not be enforced, while the state measures trash flows. Later, violations would carry fines of as much as $27,500 per day.

Dennis Dickerson, executive officer of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, said the no-trash goal is “very realistic.”

“Trash is one of the few items of pollution that is totally behaviorally controlled,” said Dickerson, whose panel recommended the 10-year goal to the state board.

He said the city would only be held responsible for trash from the storm drains. The notion that the city could be fined for an airborne gum wrapper that lands in the river, he said, “is absurd.”

The Santa Monica-based environmental group Heal the Bay also embraced the rule. The organization noted that city litter ordinances outlaw all trash dumping on streets and sidewalks.

Councilwoman Jan Perry voted against filing the lawsuit, saying the city needs to be pushed to clean the river and creek.

Also voting against the lawsuit were council members Eric Garcetti, Janice Hahn, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Jack Weiss.

“If I’m a person out there right now listening to this, it sounds like the city doesn’t want to do this,” Garcetti said.

He said that the regulation allows Los Angeles to ask for extensions and other concessions from the state board.