Riordan Promises Money to Keep Runoff From Bay

Responding to a study linking storm drain runoff with illness in some Santa Monica Bay swimmers, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on Tuesday pledged to spend at least $15 million to divert 14 polluted urban streams away from the ocean and to the city’s sewage treatment plant.

It remains to be seen whether the City Council and the public will support the increase in property taxes that the mayor’s office said eventually would be needed to pay for the proposal.

Some of the city’s lawmakers--although pleased with the idea of removing pollution from the beach--were concerned that Riordan is simultaneously planning to take money out of a storm drain cleanup fund in a budget-balancing maneuver and then proposing a tax increase to pay for the new program.

Council members Ruth Galanter and Michael Feuer endorsed the mayor’s plan to ship the polluted runoff away from the beaches and send it to the Hyperion Treatment Plant near El Segundo. But they called for a delay in a budget proposal that would shift the $26.8 million away from the cleanup account and into the General Fund.

Galanter said the proposed transfer is another example of Riordan’s preoccupation with expanding the Police Department.

“There is more to public safety than just police,” said the councilwoman, who represents a coastal district including Venice. “We also need to know that when our kids enter the water, they are safe from the risk of serious illness. . . . We should be diverting polluted water, not the funds needed to solve the problem.”

The flurry of political activity came on the day that a USC epidemiologist formally unveiled the results of an unprecedented health survey that confirmed the long-rumored connection between dirty storm water and illnesses in swimmers.

Dr. Robert Haile found that people who swim in storm water or in the ocean near it are 44% more likely to develop a sore throat, vomiting, chills or other symptom than swimmers farther away. The study, a survey of more than 13,000 bathers, projected that nearly 4% of those who swim in or near the drains will become ill.

The study was praised across the political and ideological spectrum for answering fears about bay swimming with scientific fact. It immediately upped the political stakes around the high-profile environmental issue.

Riordan sought to seize the initiative with his proposal.

The mayor appeared at the news conference at a Santa Monica hotel where the health study results were announced and, with the bay as his backdrop, said: “The surest way to protect Angelenos will be to prevent the polluted water from ever reaching the beach. The plan I am proposing is a viable, creative solution which will result in clean, safe water for the enjoyment of millions of Angelenos and visitors.”

Riordan said he will commit at least $15 million, and more if needed, to divert 14 drains in Los Angeles into the sewer system. He also pledged that the city will work with Los Angeles County and the city of Santa Monica to staunch the flow from five other problematic storm channels within Santa Monica’s boundaries.

Typically, storm drains carry rainwater and street debris to the ocean. They often run near sewers, which channel human waste to treatment plants. By linking the drains to the sewers, Riordan and others hope to find a relatively cheap way to ensure that the storm water receives treatment before it is dumped into Santa Monica Bay.

The mayor’s plan calls only for treating storm water during dry weather. During the rainy season, the large flow of rainwater would overwhelm the city’s Hyperion Treatment Plant.

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The 14 drains targeted by city officials run from Pacific Palisades near Sunset Boulevard in the north, to Imperial Highway near the city of El Segundo in the south.

To pay for redirecting the water, it will be necessary to raise a property tax assessment that averages about $23 annually per homeowner, said Riordan budget Director Chris O’Donnell. The amount of the tax increase is unknown.

Officials at City Hall had projected some increase in the so-called storm water service charge, even before the Riordan proposal. That projected increase is linked to a new federal permit that soon will force all cities in the county to inspect businesses, expand public education and take many other actions to help clean storm drains.

Even if the tax increase wins the approval of the City Council, the ambitious public works project will face technical and engineering hurdles.

A report from the city’s Stormwater Management Division concedes that it is not known whether sewer lines have enough capacity to carry the additional flow from all the storm channels.

Some of the most contaminated channels, such as Ballona Creek in Marina del Rey, will not be part of the program. They carry such large volumes of water that the additional flows would overwhelm the heavily taxed Hyperion plant.

Feuer applauded the effort to keep the contaminated water from the beach. “We can’t build a fence around the mouth of every storm drain and we can’t rely on signs on the sand,” the councilman said. “We need to divert polluted water to the sewage plant, where it can be adequately treated.”

But later in the day, a council committee was eyeing skeptically another Riordan proposal--one that would move nearly $27 million over two years out of a Stormwater Pollution Abatement Fund and into the General Fund. While most of the money would be used for street sweeping--a program that is supposed to help keep debris out of drains--the net amount of money on hand for pollution control programs would be reduced.

Feuer said the proposed diversion of storm water funds to street-sweeping is part of a larger “game of chicken” in which Riordan’s entire $4-billion budget moves money from one special fund to another in order to free up more dollars for police.

And he predicted that the shift of funds would mean an even larger tax increase down the road, to pay to shore up the depleted storm water cleanup account. “I’m very troubled by the idea of deferring our expenses for another day--particularly a day after the next election,” said Feuer, one of five council members on a special committee reviewing Riordan’s proposed budget.

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Mark Gold, executive director of the environmental group Heal the Bay, said Riordan’s storm drain construction plan is a good one, potentially solving the most immediate public health problem surrounding the bay.

But Gold added that with no plans to clean up Ballona Creek or divert water during the rainy season, winter ocean users still will be exposed to high levels of contamination, as well as a host of other concerns, Gold said.

“This contaminated runoff won’t just go away with some drain diversions,” Gold said.

Gold called for no diversion of funds from the storm water fund until all the city’s drain cleanup obligations are met.

But Riordan said critics should not fear a temporary shift of funds in the budget. “We are going to do whatever we have to to make this thing work,” he said.

The mayor’s advisors said that they already have funded, into next year, a program to teach the public not to put trash, oil, pet waste and other pollutants into storm drains.

“Anything else that needs to be done on the environmental side, they just have to come to us and we will look seriously at doing it,” O’Donnell said.