Cleaner water may trickle to O.C.

Alicia Robinson

Cleaner water could filter into Orange County because of an agreement

by the state Department of Transportation to install filters and

other pollution controlling methods along highways around the state.

The agreement, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, was the

result of a lawsuit filed in 1993 against Caltrans by the Natural

Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica BayKeeper. The suit

alleged that Caltrans didn’t do enough to stop pollution in highway

runoff in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and thus violated the

Clean Water Act.

Newport Beach activist Garry Brown, executive director of

CoastKeeper, hopes to use the decision to strengthen his fight

against Caltrans.

“Now we can all go back and say, ‘If you’re going to do it for Los

Angeles and Ventura counties, these [other] areas are just as

sensitive,’ and we can start that process,” Brown said. “I would

certainly contend that [Pacific Coast Highway] going through

Huntington Beach and Newport Beach are as sensitive areas as you can

get anywhere in the state.”

Brown fought a 2002 Caltrans highway drainage plan for East Coast

Highway above Crystal Cove that he considered inadequate. That plan

has since been modified to require Caltrans to monitor water quality

in its drainage system.

“Caltrans has always totally avoided and opposed any type of

mechanical filtration device, and that was the same issue we had with

them in Newport Coast,” Brown said. “They just don’t recognize any of

the modern technology in cleaning runoff from Caltrans roads.”

The decision is expected to have a direct result on water quality

here.

“It really does impact Orange County.... This part of the

settlement will not only affect those two counties but will affect

Caltrans construction practices throughout the state,” said David

Beckman, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The agreement will require Caltrans to consider using storm water

control measures when building new highway projects and making

improvements encompassing more than three acres to existing highways,

Caltrans spokesman David Anderson.

“We are very, very pleased to be working together with our

partners there at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Santa

Monica BayKeeper,” Andreson said. “I think we’ve come to a good

resolution on an important environmental issue.”

The recent agreement to install filters is the first time Caltrans

has agreed to use new technologies to treat runoff, and it will set a

statewide precedent, he said.