Caltrans loses cove appeal

Paul Clinton

CRYSTAL COVE -- The state water board on Thursday slapped down

Caltrans’s appeal of a lower board’s order to clean up storm-water runoff

into the cove.

While the California Department of Transportation lost its appeal of

the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Nov. 16 cleanup

order, the agency was given a one-year extension to implement a plan.

The transportation agency had questioned the regional board’s claim

that rain water flowing from Coast Highway into Crystal Cove was illegal

in an appeal filed Dec. 15.

The cove, one of 35 “Areas of Special Biological Significance” in the

state, falls under rules laid out in the state’s 1972 Ocean Plan.

Polluted water can not be dumped into a water body with that designation.

“They made certain legal arguments that the board didn’t agree with,”

said Elizabeth Jennings, senior staff counsel at the state board. “There

was runoff. That’s prohibited by the Ocean Plan.”

Once the final ruling came, Caltrans accepted it, Jennings said.

Caltrans spokeswoman Beth Beeman could not confirm Jennings’statement.

“I can’t really comment,” Beeman said. “We continue to work with all

parties on it.”

Under the new timetable, Caltrans was given until Nov. 16, 2003 to

stop any further “direct discharges” of waste water from the highway. The

agency must submit its plan by May 16, 2002.

Caltrans wasn’t the only entity the regional water board named in the

Nov. 16 cease-and-desist order. The California State Parks Department and

The Irvine Co. were also mentioned.

After announcing some details of its own runoff plan, the Irvine Co.

secured an approval from the California Coastal Commission on March 12.

Local environmentalists lauded the ruling, which has been in the works

since an April 4 public hearing. Garry Brown, executive director for

Orange County Coastkeeper, sued the Irvine Co. last year, a move that

prompted the company to begin implementing changes at its housing project

above the cove.

“They took a stab at it,” Brown said about the Caltrans appeal. “I

don’t think their arguments hold water.”

Environmental lawyers representing Newport Beach activist Bob Caustin,

who founded Defend the Bay, filed a legal brief supporting the regional

board’s claim against Caltrans.

“These people now have to find another place to put their waste,’

Caustin said Thursday. “It’s such a monumental decision. [State board

members] are finally saying ‘Hell no.”’

The regional board “acted properly in issuing a cease and desist order

to the Department of Transportation for violations or threatened

violations of the Ocean Plan,” the state board found in Thursday’s

written decision.