VIC LEIPZIG & LOU MURRAY -- The Natural Perspective
Several new ideas -- some good, some bad -- have surfaced recently about
how to solve the problems of contaminated urban runoff into the ocean off
Huntington Beach.
The county and city have come up with a laudable plan for completely
blocking urban runoff from several of the flood control channels. They
have already made plans to divert the runoff from the flood control pump
stations into the sewer system, where it will receive treatment before
being discharged.
The only problem with this good idea is that not all runoff goes through
the pump stations. Some of it simply goes by gravity straight from the
street curb into the flood control channel.
How can the city and county block this stuff from entering the ocean?
Well, they’ve come up with a way to do that, too. It’s drastic, but it
will work.
They will simply dam off the channels for the summer months. The water
that drains into the channels will be pumped back out and into the
sewers. This way, no runoff at all will get down these channels to the
sea.
I talked with Howard Johnson, the city’s storm water supervisor, and he
is enthusiastic, in part, just because the city and county are
cooperating well on the project.
I talked with Chris Kubasek of the county’s flood control department. He
tells me the barriers and diversions could be installed as soon as the
first week in June and would stay up until Labor Day. They would have to
come down before the rainy season because the amount of water during
storms is much too great to be pumped to the sewers.
What kind of barrier would they use? For the most part, they expect to
use K-rails, those concrete railings that are used on the freeways. These
would be lined with heavy-duty plastic to form a watertight dam.
An even more interesting technology would be used in one channel near
Costa Mesa. The plan there is to use interlocking concrete pieces that
link together like children’s toys -- only these parts weigh two tons
apiece.
The Talbert channel, the Greenville-Banning channel, even the Santa Ana
River would be blocked off.
Is there any downside to these measures? Probably not much. It’s true
that the flood control channels are used by wildlife around here, but
most of that usage is down where the channels are influenced by the tides
and filled with salt water. The proposed barriers would be fairly far
upstream.
The Santa Ana River barrier, for example, would be up at Talbert Avenue
-- “near Costco” is how one agency engineer put it. Most wildlife using
the river and the tidal portions of the channels would not be affected.
As long as the ebb and flow of the salt water in the lower channels
continues, the marshes will stay oxygenated, and the fish and birds
should be just fine.
I think these barriers are a good idea. Unfortunately, there is also a
bad idea that has been getting some play.
This idea is to build runoff outfalls. These would be pipes extending out
to sea to carry runoff out beyond the surf zonewhere swimmers are. This
proposal does nothing to solve the problem; it just moves it to a new
location.
Even the barriers in the flood control channels are only a short-term
solution. The real answer lies partly in changing people’s habits -- our
own habits. We need to stop washing and dumping our waste into the curb
gutters.
The rest of the solution requires that we build the facilities needed to
remove from runoff the pollutants that are going to get into it anyway.
* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and
environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 vicleipzig@aol.comf7 .
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