Solution to pollution: create a diversion

Alex Coolman

COSTA MESA -- The Santa Ana River will take on a new look in June as a

makeshift berm is installed in the riverbed -- part of a new county

program to divert urban runoff into the sewer.

At a spot on the river below Talbert Avenue, county officials plan to

construct a berm of concrete barriers and sandbags. The structure could

be in place as soon as June 7, said Mary Anne Skorpanich, special

projects manager of the Orange County Public Facilities and Resources

Department.

The clunky structure is part of an ambitious, $276,000 program of runoff

diversion that was announced last week in what Skorpanich describes as an

effort to address beach pollution problems at the watershed level.

County officials believe that urban runoff from sources such as the Santa

Ana River and the Talbert marsh contributed to last summer’s extended run

of beach closures and postings in Huntington Beach.

“The studies have not been conclusive yet,” Skorpanich said. “But we want

to go ahead and act on what we know so far.”

Under the new plan, barriers will divert runoff at locations in Costa

Mesa, Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley and flows from pump stations

will be directed to waste water treatment plants.

In addition to the berm near Talbert Avenue, Costa Mesa will get a second

barrier just below Adams Avenue in the Greenville-Banning Channel, a

storm channel that runs parallel to the Santa Ana River.

In all, Skorpanich said, about 2.5 million gallons of runoff per day will

be diverted to the Orange County Sanitation District’s treatment plants.

The treated water will then be released from a pipe five miles out to

sea, along with treated sewage.

The scope of the county’s program -- tackling runoff at sites miles

inland -- draws attention to the complex problem of dealing with

pollution in an area that has such a large watershed, said Garry Brown,

executive director of Orange County Coastkeeper.

“It’s a regionwide program, not just a coastal problem,” Brown said.

“[The watershed] is like a big funnel, and we’re at the bottom of the

funnel.”

Brown said he was encouraged by the attention the county was paying to

the runoff problem, but cautioned that diversion was in many ways “a

quick-fix, Band-Aid approach.”

Diversion alone can not be the ultimate solution to these problems, he

said.

The diversion program will only be in effect during the summer because

storm-swollen runoff levels are too high for treatment plants to handle

in the wintertime.

But these floods of water, particularly the “first flush” caused by the

initial storm of the rainy season, are the ones that are most likely to

be polluted, Brown said.

In the long run, he said, the solution to runoff pollution may be found

less in diversion berms than in the behavior of the watershed’s

residents.

“It’s going to take a change of living habits,” he said.