State Improperly Approved New Rules to Clean Trash From L.A. River, Court Says

Tough new environmental rules to reduce the amount of trash in the Los Angeles River were improperly approved by state regulators in violation of California law, according to a court ruling on a lawsuit by a group of cities that said they can’t afford the regulations.

The ruling is a victory for the Coalition for Practical Regulation, which encompasses 22 small L.A. County municipalities affected by the trash rules. The coalition has argued that the rules, which require that floating debris in the river and its tributaries be reduced by 10% every year for a decade, would cost the cities millions of dollars they don’t have.

Environmentalists, who have been pushing for years to clean up the region’s polluted rivers and storm drains, greeted the ruling with consternation, fearing that it could postpone cleanup indefinitely.

“The environmental community is extremely concerned by the decision,” said Mark Gold, executive director of the Santa Monica group Heal the Bay. “It seems to contradict how courts have ruled on similar issues in the past.”

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Wayne L. Peterson ruled that the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which enacted the regulations, had failed to consider the economic effects on the cities, as required by state law. He concluded that the water board had failed to properly consider the plan’s environmental effects, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act. He ordered the water board to immediately stop all actions to enforce and implement the regulations.

“Trash is a problem -- we all recognize this issue. The problem here is that the water board has attempted to pass the problem entirely down to the cities,” said Richard Montevideo, a lawyer representing the 22 cities, which include South Pasadena, Whittier, Cerritos and Signal Hill. “We can’t afford to have storm-water cops on every corner. That really isn’t the best use of our money.”

Regional water board officials downplayed the ruling Tuesday, predicting that it would delay the implementation of the Los Angeles River trash rules for only a few months. The water board may also appeal it, said Executive Director Dennis Dickerson. The ruling did not apply to a similar trash rule for Ballona Creek.

“Most of the work in this case clearly has been completed. It’s a question of coming up with what we need to meet the judge’s requirements,” Dickerson said.

Asked how long that could take, he declined to speculate, adding only that “it certainly would not be years.”

However, Los Angeles city officials predicted that the consequences would be more significant. At a minimum, they said, delays in re-adopting a new trash rule would probably save local municipalities millions in compliance costs this year.

“It’s money we didn’t have,” said Los Angeles Councilman Bernard Parks, chairman of the council’s Budget Committee, who hailed the court ruling.

Parks and other city leaders said that Los Angeles is committed to reasonable efforts to clean up the river, but that the ruling might give the city flexibility to reevaluate its efforts and ensure that they do not bust the city budget.

“I think it’s important that the city not have this exorbitant cost placed on it,” Parks said. “But I don’t think it eliminates the city’s role of being environmentally straight.”

The city and county of Los Angeles agreed last fall to spend $168 million to clean up half of the trash in the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek as part of a settlement with state regulators. But the smaller cities noted that the settlement had left them with the remainder of the tab, which could run to the tens of millions.

Environmentalists have ridiculed the cities’ cost estimates, calling them exaggerated.

They have argued that the cities should spend less money fighting regulators in court, and more money eliminating pollution.

The coalition of cities that filed the lawsuit said Tuesday that it hoped that the ruling would lead to a reconsideration of the rules by water board regulators.

“What I hope comes out of this is a collaborative effort,” said Signal Hill Councilman Larry Forester. “We need more collaboration. We need to work on achievable means to clean up this river.”