Here’s how to clean Aliso Creek

It has been acknowledged that the mouth of Aliso Creek spews between 1 and 5 million gallons of pollution per day onto the beach during non-rainy weather. Another 1 to 2 million gallons never reaches the beach, as it evaporates or infiltrates upstream.

What will improve the health of this lower reach and the entire watershed? Pull all of the man-made improvements out as you would an obnoxious weed ? demolish the golf course and resort. That is, rip ‘em out roots and all, never to grow back.

The suggested strategy to improve this zone ? that is, diverting the millions of gallons of toxic soup in lower Aliso Creek ? is fatally flawed. This is a classic case of public ignorance and/or public officials passing the buck, unfortunately more akin to a lie circulated over and over until it takes on a monolithic truth not readily refuted. For those who note the diversion in Laguna Canyon Creek as a successful model ? only 50,000 gallons per day is diverted.

Waste treatment plants are useless destinations for urban runoff as they are designed for organic materials. They were never designed to accept the complex brew that is urban runoff. They first remove coarse detritus via skimming the surface of large holding bins, then they use chlorine to reduce pathogenic bacteria that only cause eye, ear, nose and throat inflammations/illnesses

They do not, and are not required under their EPA-approved permits, to remove or reduce the carcinogens listed as California Toxic Rules constituents or Proposition 65 chemicals, nor the heavy metals, neuro-toxins (pesticides/herbicides), PCBs, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and other life-threatening pollutants commonly found in runoff. So the dominant fluids and substances, the noxious gamut that can mutate and/or kill living organisms bathing in urban runoff passes through its digestive system pretty much intact and unaffected.

Sadly, the ocean outfall pipe that is used to discharge this treated water is only a mile from the Aliso Creek Beach in about 100 feet of water, straight out to sea. This discharge is warm, and ? as discovered in Huntington Beach ? it rises only to be pushed back toward the beach by the wind and ocean currents.

So one can rightly say that it is simply re-introduced or re-circulated into the environs, only now in highly concentrated toxic bundles. Diversions therefore are similar to taking all of the debris collected during housecleaning each day, throwing it onto your front porch, only to be tracked right back into the home each day. Nothing is gained, and eventually the accumulation of toxins creates a virtual hazardous waste dump ? a good description of the entire watershed, top to bottom.

The treatment plants are already near their capacities. The coastal plant just above the golf course treats and sends out 3 million to 4 million gallons per day, roughly the equivalent of the nuisance water the unknowledgeable feel can be diverted. This isn’t shocking because they were engineered and designed to accommodate the few million gallons per day of waste from local residences and businesses.

Presently, there are no singular technologies ? nor combinations thereof (called “treatment trains”) ? that can remove the water-borne viruses, metals, California Toxic Rules components, etc. I’ve mentioned. Moreover, there is no infrastructure in existence, nor planned, that can hold the volumes of water discussed. How could you hold and treat when each day the flow of toxins is repeated? In other words, diversions are unrealistic and unachievable in the immediate future.

The solution is to demolish and remove everything in the lower reach ? about 1 1/4 miles of the watercourse upstream of the bridge on Coast Highway. The development of Driftwood Estates, LLC should be allowed to go forward, but only if the developer, the Athens Group, agrees to mitigate by removing the entire Aliso Creek Inn and golf course.

Take out every trace of human incursion, leaving only a service road hugging the hill that can double as the final connecting dot in the biking and hiking trail which begins at Cook’s Corners. The South Coast Water District auto shop can relocate too.

Holding or settling ponds would require periodic dredging for contaminants, but this has been successfully accomplished elsewhere.

Petition the California Coastal Conservancy to purchase this site from Driftwood Estates, LLC. Let them make up some of their revenue model via “in-filling” on the proposed acreage behind the trailer park and shopping center, but give up the lower canyon as a heritage park for all of Orange County.

If the Athens Group is as environmentally aware and sensitive as they claim, if they truly want to become proud neighbors and truly part of this community, if they respect us and want peace with us, this is the way to do it.