Crackdown on Polluters Underway

Long considered ineffective, state water officials are taking the toughest stand against polluters in recent memory.

The crackdown includes unprecedented fines for sewage spills, ordering cities to stop sending urban runoff into local waterways, and setting limits on pollutants entering tainted water bodies.

Environmentalists say that after a stagnant period during Republican Pete Wilson’s administration, officials under Democratic Gov. Gray Davis are using far more of the tools provided by federal law to keep California’s waters clean.

More money has been allocated and more enforcement personnel hired. In addition, mounting public concern about contaminated waters and urban runoff has forced regional boards to become more active.

“We are definitely seeing in the last year some very notable and meaningful actions coming out of” state water boards, said Alexis Strauss, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional water division director in San Francisco. “They are really taking on a vigorous role that has been [lacking] in prior years.”

In the 1992-93 fiscal year, there were 142 enforcement actions statewide, including 51 fines. In the 1999-2000 fiscal year, which ended June 30, there were 250 enforcement actions, including 113 fines.

The boards’ actions include cleanup and abatement orders for urban runoff. Laguna Niguel, Orange County and the county’s flood control district were ordered by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board to stop sending bacteria-laden runoff into a tributary of Aliso Creek in December.

The board is considering expanding the order to include all cities that drain into the polluted creek, from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

The order was among the first of its kind meant to hold an agency responsible for urban runoff--the animal droppings, trash and chemicals that are flushed from lawns and streets into storm drains and then into area waterways and eventually the ocean.

“They’re definitely moving in the right direction. Three years ago, it was a complete and total disaster,” said Mark Gold, director of Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay.

A 1998 study by Heal the Bay found that there had been at least 9,000 violations of water quality laws in the Los Angeles region between 1992 and 1997, including 2,194 spills that released 24.8 million gallons of sewage, 3.3 million gallons of oil and 240,000 gallons of chemicals. More than 99.5% of these violations did not result in penalties. No comparable studies are available for Orange County.

“Right now, the boards have improved dramatically and I think it’s important to give credit where credit is due,” Gold added.

Many say the stepped up enforcement is due to the election of Davis, who has increased the budgets of regional water boards 38%. Last summer, he added $3.5 million to the budget to hire 35 more staffers. This year, the budget included $4.86 million to retain the new hires and add 14 more positions.

“The governor has indicated that clean water and . . . making sure the state has clean waterways is an important priority,” said Stanley Young, spokesman for the California Resources Agency. “We are taking enforcement seriously. In many cases, there are already laws on the books, but the laws without enforcement have no teeth.”

Strauss of the EPA added that increased public attention on beach closures and pollution has helped spur action.

“Beach closures [are] something none of us want to see continue. We need to deal with the root causes of the problem if we are ever going to turn the corner,” she said.

The regional boards have begun to set limits on pollutants allowed to enter dirty waterways, a requirement of the Clean Water Act that was ignored for decades. Faced with more than 45 lawsuits nationally, including one addressing tainted Newport Bay, the EPA began requiring states to enforce the forgotten provision, said David Smith, a team leader for the EPA’s regional office in San Francisco.

The standards, known as total maximum daily loads or TMDLs, set precise limits on the amounts of bacteria, sediment, toxins or even trash that can enter an already polluted waterway from open space, agricultural operations and residential neighborhoods.

Nationwide, about 40,000 TMDLs will have to be established. California’s more than 500 polluted water bodies must have 1,200 TMDL standards in place by 2012. The state has drastically increased funding for setting these limits, which is extremely time-consuming. In 1995, about $300,000 was being spent on TMDLs; this year, about $3 million will be spent.

Despite the improvements, however, everyone agrees there is a long way to go.

The state’s nine regional water boards, charged with enforcing the federal Clean Water Act, have long been underfunded and understaffed, officials say. The San Diego region, which had about 40 staffers during the Wilson Administration, currently has about 60, said Art Coe, assistant executive officer. Ideally, the region needs twice that, he said.

In Los Angeles, the situation had become so dire that the Natural Resources Defense Council in February filed a petition asking the EPA to take over for the regional board because it was failing to uphold the Clean Water Act. The EPA has yet to act, but a decision on whether to conduct a formal hearing is expected before year’s end.

David Beckman, a senior attorney with the council’s Los Angeles office, said that although the recent improvements are a step forward, much more needs to be done.

“There is a trend for increased enforcement, but the baseline is so low that there’s still a long way to go,” he said. “There just isn’t the staff necessary to do enforcement, to identify the problem, prove allegations and be prepared to see a case through.”

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Water Act Violations

Violations of the the federal Clean Water Act have risen dramatically in recent years statewide and in Orange County.