Part II: The History of the Toxic Soup Tour

In the first part I discussed the origins, activities and initial reactions to the TST through 2001. Here’s the subsequent fallout.

By 2002 we’d slowed down the TST forages due to several factors: (a) We were told that WE might be litigated if someone became ill or died (Hepatitis A, the flesh-eating staphylococcus, West Nile, etc.) because WE took them there! (b) Self-employed, I lost so much work time that I had to file for bankruptcy in late 2002. I became depressed over this and the spiritual downside of guiding the TST and the only change observed was the increasing number of warning signs put up without any other restraining factors.

Nonetheless, rookies with unprecedented media coverage, via TST participation by public officials and regulatory agency employees, we optimistically thought that we’d started a revolution. We falsely assumed that once the obvious deterioration of our watersheds was made the “cause celebre” effective reversals and improvements would occur. We revealed the causal factors due to poor government planning. We dragged the neo-con political structure responsible out in the daylight. Shame and pillory them publicly into meaningful remedies. Surely all of the heated debate and watching such catastrophes in progress would have a major impact. Wrong!

2001 passed into 2002 with some positive signs: I was personally chosen by the OC Bureau of the LA Times as one of its Top 10 activists, sharing the accolades with former LB City Councilman and Cal EPA Board Member Wayne Baglin, no slouch himself.

The OC Grand Jury asked Mike and I to provide testimony that led to a scathing admonishment of local governance in their 2001 Urban Runoff Report. We were specifically cited by name for outstanding fieldwork. We shocked many by revealing there were Hepatitis A markers in the storm drain system on Kite Hill in Laguna Niguel.

True believers, we achieved a few milestones that to this day prove CWN! performed ALL of the heavy lifting in relation to achieving meaningful results, that is critical enforcement actions by EPA. We pushed, cajoled, lobbied, and badgered the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board and staff, we did the dirty work as the only soldiers in these trenches. Kudos to Wayne Baglin, who as chairman helped get these enforcement actions on the Board’s radar screen.

Mike led the way regarding the pollution coming out of the San Joaquin Corridor Toll Road. Caltrans actually had higher pathogenic bacteria counts coming out than going into their detention basins and filters. Literally every water quality mitigation installation from Newport Beach to Laguna Niguel was worthless or dysfunctional. It took hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years under an enforcement cloud before they managed to get their collective necks out of the EPA noose.

I pushed through a successful petition: The infamous Section 13225 Water Quality Directive for the entire Aliso Creek Watershed, to this day misunderstood but the single most important Aliso Creek enforcement action. Before this, we lacked discrete data that would help us ascertain just where and how bad the pollution concentrations were at identifiable points of responsibility. We wanted a thorough database to help source track for future enforcement actions and fines.

The Directive was challenged by the Aliso Creek NPDES stormwater co-permittees resulting in an EPA hearing held at Laguna Beach City Council Chambers in the spring of 2002. I was given Designated Party status to singly represent and defend the Directive for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s). CWN! prevailed, but it was a Pyrrhic victory in a protracted war.

It has cost over $1 million per year to monitor every substantial-sized pipe that directs storm drain water (urban runoff) into the creek. The County must monitor about 40 discharge locations for chlorine content, AB 411 bacteria , flow, ph, etc. plus another 20 sites or so in the creek itself. They’ve tried to halt it, whining that nothing has changed in 6 years hence no need to test---Our position has been: “Don’t test, don’t tell,” that is if they stop testing we won’t be able to track and hold accountable these chronic violators of the federal Clean Water Act and state Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.

CWN! was given endorsement letters by the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club to represent South County NGO’s at the legal challenges to the 2002 NPDES Permit with hearings held in Sacramento. Those same intransigent copermittees appealed the 2002 Permit trying to avoid compliance, and their predictable partners from the Building Industry of America piled on to insidiously reduce improvement prescriptions.

Where are we now? The TST rides again because frankly, really nothing has changed for the better. The eco-entropy continues unabated. Not one significant, major watershed project reversing the entropy has been funded. One 4-mile-long restoration for Aliso Creek Canyon , called SUPER, sits dead in the water due to our own Congressman John Campbell’s ultimate refusal to support it. As a high priority, 303 (d) and 301 (b) federally Impaired Waterbody, by law (Title 40 CFR) our County and inland city officials should be working their bureaucratic, fat-cat asses off to remove it from this black-eye list.

Depressingly, the bad guys still barf their toxic stuff indiscriminately into a stream that swimmers, skimmers and children wallow in at Aliso Creek County Beach. This strand, plus other known public and attractive nuisances like Doheny and the sadly-named Baby Beach in the Dana Point Harbor ,should be closed indefinitely, off-limits.

The paradigm shift we thought we’d started, creating a virtual blitzkrieg of awareness to drive change, has failed. We’re down to our last unavoidable choice: litigation. So yes, we’re back, and yes, still looking for one good attorney with the guts and determination to take on the monolithic agencies who should be held accountable. Do you know one?

Roger E. Butow is the founder of CWN!, a 61-year-old Southern California native and 36-year resident of Laguna Beach. He is an environmental actionist and lives with his cat Zoey in Victoria Beach. He can be reached at www.cleanwaternow.com.