The city of Santa Monica, California, which is located fifteen miles west-southwest from downtown Los Angeles, is a world renowned tourist destination offering many popular ocean related activities. In 1995, Los Angeles County beaches attracted 51 million visitors who spent approximately two billion dollars on coastal related tourism. Ms. Beverly Moore, Executive Director of the Santa Monica Convention and Visitor's Bureau, acknowledges the City of Santa Monica's economic interest in the Santa Monica Bay by asserting, "The continued improvement in the health of our ocean is critical to the long-term health of the tourism industry". Besides having a thriving tourist industry that depends upon a healthy ocean, the City of Santa Monica is also concerned for the health of the community that it serves, by playing an active role in monitoring water pollution and development of environmental alliances. Unfortunately, there is much work to be done in the Santa Monica Bay, for it and the surrounding areas represent some of the most polluted marine ecosystems in the nation. Urban runoff, municipal sewage, and industrial pollutants combined with economic, political, and population growth factors, all contribute to the overall devastation and questionable turnabout of a local treasure. The key factor in preserving the Santa Monica Bay, depends upon priorities set by local, state, and federal governments in enacting and maintaining strict environmental laws, and our ability to influence legislative opinion by becoming more politically involved on the issue.
Between 1987 and 1988, forty million gallons of untreated raw sewage was accidentally released into the waters off Los Angeles County. A power outage on August 10, 1996, forced the release of over 6 million gallons of primary treated sewage into the Santa Monica Bay. Currently, eight-hundred million gallons of secondary treated sewage is dumped into the bay everyday.{2} The ocean discharge of sewage waste promotes a high level of illness causing pathogens (parasitic organisms), and a phenomenon classified as BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand). Biochemical Oxygen Demand is a measure of water pollution, whereby bacteria uses oxygen in consuming the waste in wastewater. If the BOD is too high, bacteria will use up most if not all of the oxygen in the water, leaving little to none for plants and animals in a process called Eutrophication (conditions that favor plant life over animal life). The Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 prohibits the dumping of sewage sludge and industrial wastes at sea, but does not cover wastes that are discharge from outfall pipes of sewage treatment plants and industrial facilities.{6}
The most serious source of ocean pollution in terms of total amounts is referred to as 'urban runoff' (non-point source pollution). Catch basins, the opening in curbs found throughout the city, lead to a series of tunnels, catacombs, and culverts more than 1,1000 miles long, forming the nation's largest municipal flood control system. When it rains, all the oil, grease, trash, and hazardous materials which has been building up during the year, is washed down the drains into the flood-control system and out one of the 68 channels that open onto beaches from Malibu to Palos Verdes. Unlike wastewater which winds its way through the sewer system to two municipal water treatment plants in Los Angeles, storm-water runoff goes directly to the ocean without treatment procedures of any sort. An example of the magnitude of the pollution involved; in 1989, eight inches of rainfall caused stormdrains to deposit their contents of over 150,000 pounds of lead and 4.5 million pounds of oil and grease into the ocean off the Southern California coast.{1} Heavy metals such as lead, are all highly toxic to human beings except in the most minute amounts, and being themselves chemical elements as opposed to elements, heavy metals cannot be converted or destroyed in an otherwise chemically reactive process. The recycling efforts of industrial by-products is regulated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), but heavy metals are often part of complex substances that are difficult to break down for reuse and not readily identifiable. Therefore, being a profit inhibiting by-product, many heavy metals are released by way of industrial effluents primarily from chemical plants. The Chevron Oil Corporation refinery at El Segundo, admits to discharging wastewater containing heavy metals from the refining process into the Santa Monica Bay, but contends that it does such at a much lower rate than the wastewater treatment centers operated by the City and Country of Los Angeles.{3} The weakness of this argument revolves around the fact that, all industries including other oil refineries in the Los Angeles area, discharge their primary treated wastewater into the aforementioned treatment centers.
During a recent "Coastal Clean-up Day" sponsored by local environmental groups, volunteers collected 21,400 pounds of trash off of Los Angeles County beaches. Included in this collection was 43,000 cigarette butts, which if laid end to end, would stretch twenty-nine miles.{4} Improperly discarded items, whether on the beach or in the city, poses a danger to marine animals who can either choke or become entangled on the debris. Biodegradation of manufactured products depends upon chemical composition and exposure to sunlight, but a sampling of recyclable materials is as follows: plastic bottle - 450 years; disposable diaper - 400 years; polystyrene cup - 50 years; tin can - 40 years; cigarette filters - 25 years.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency claims that one quart of dirty oil can contaminate over 250,000 gallons of water,{5} but ironically, the Chevron Oil refinery at El Segundo is allowed to discharge 4.4 million gallons of wastewater per day, which can legally contain up to 10 tons of oil and grease per month.{1} Furthermore, having no harbor facilities at El Segundo, the Chevron Oil Corporation utilizes underwater pipelines which extend about a mile into the Santa Monica Bay for tanker connections. Taking into consideration previous disasters; oil tankers, underwater pipelines, and offshore platforms are accidents waiting to happen. It is estimated that the chance of a major oil spill in excess of 1,000 barrels is close to 90% in the next twenty years off the Southern California coast.{1} Local disasters that promote this probability are the Huntington Beach oil spill of an estimated 400,000 gallons from the tanker American Trader on February 7, 1990, and the Santa Barbara oil well blowout of approximately 800,000 gallons from January 31 to February 8, 1969.
Ocean dumping has historically been more economically attractive when compared with other land based waste management options. The growth of shipping at Los Angeles harbor exasperated the problem of illegal dumping of toxic materials from tankers and freighters. Radioactive waste materials and explosives have been traditionally dumped into a dozen underwater disposal sites from Ventura to the Mexican border.{1} Even well-respected public institutions of higher learning are not immune from environmental controversy. On October 31, 1993, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), was accused of attempting to improperly dispose of human remains with medical wastes into the Santa Monica Bay. Scalpels with dried blood, broken syringes, glass vials, clumps of used gauze, and rubber gloves were found mixed with cremated human remains to be given last rites at sea. Mr. Jack McGurk, investigator with the medical waste management branch of the state Department of Health Services, confirmed that even if the material was incinerated as required, there could still be a significant health and environmental hazard.{7} McGurk's unit was created in response to public outcry over the discovery of used syringes and medical waste that washed up along the shoreline in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties in the late 1980s.
A source of pollution that directly impacts the health of residents and city revenues of Santa Monica is a chemical known as MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether). MTBE is a volatile organic compound derived from natural gas (methanol), that when added to gasoline, raises the octane level and reduces carbon monoxide levels in the air. The Clean Air Amendments of 1990 mandate that compounds such as MTBE which add oxygen (oxygenates), be added either seasonally or year round to gasoline in specific parts of the country, where concentrations of ozone in the summer or carbon monoxide in the winter exceed established air-quality standards. MTBE is a commonly used oxygenate (ranked second in production among all organic chemicals in the U.S.) because of its low cost, ease of production, and favorable transfer and blending characteristics with gasoline. Because of high solubility (the ability to mix with other substances), MTBE is expected to be found primarily in the atmosphere and water. It is hypothesized that MTBE travels with water in the Hydrologic cycle (the circulation of water from the oceans, to the air, to the ground and underground, and back to the oceans again, and is highly mobile in soil and can move into groundwater. Once in groundwater, MTBE resists decay when compared to other gasoline components like benzene. Groundwater accounts for a third of all water used in Southern California, because the Los Angeles basin has a massive set of aquifers, or water-bearing geological layers beneath its surface. Aquifers are vulnerable to pollutants since unlike rivers, they are not readily replenished by running water, with the average renewal period being in the range of 280 days. The City of Santa Monica had previously taken advantage of the plentiful groundwater reserves, by pumping more than half their water supply from underground aquifers in two separate locations.{1} Earlier this year, in response to the "tentative classification" given MTBE as a "possible human carcinogen" by the Environmental Protection Agency, the City of Santa Monica has made the responsible decision of taking the Charnock well field out of service.{8} Santa Monica has been forced to replace the lost water by purchasing the like amount from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District. In a recent conversation with Ms. Miriam Cardenas of the City of Santa Monica's Water Division, I was related the projected annual replacement cost for the lost water at being in the neighborhood of 2-3 million dollars. Although MTBE is used in counties where about 109 million Americans live, the EPA has placed the chemical compound on its Drinking Water Priority List, which relegates it to the status of a "possible candidate for future regulation".{9} If "future regulation" is deemed necessary, it would come under the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), a federal law authorizing the EPA to "protect public health and welfare from contaminants". As of 1991, only 60 of the hundreds of pollutants found in drinking water are regulated the SDWA.{10} Amendments made to the SDWA in 1986, extended federal protection for groundwater by "establishing programs to protect critical groundwater sources of drinking water, to protect areas around wells that supply public drinking water systems, and by regulating the underground injection of wastes above and below drinking water sources". Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for pollutants are set under the SDWA, with those most important to health labeled as Primary Drinking Water Standards. The City of Santa Monica conducts more than 20,000 water quality tests over the course of a year, and mails its Annual Water Quality Report to all local residents and businesses (MTBE is not shown in the 1995 report).{8}
The study conducted by Heal the Bay in 1995, indicated an overall decrease in pollution (bacteria counts) for a third year in a row.{11} Credit for this progress is given by way of two explanations. First, the City of Los Angeles is discharging one-quarter the amount of pollution to the Santa Monica Bay than it did in 1985. Additionally, the County Sanitation Districts must reduce pollution discharge from the Carson facility by 50% before the year 2002 as a result of a lawsuit brought by Heal the Bay.{12} Second, the non-storm runoff at the Pico-Kenter and Santa Monica Pier storm drains are now blocked off and the contents diverted to the Hyperion sewage treatment plant. Placing the optimistic outlook into a realistic perspective, letter grades for beach areas from Malibu to Marina Del Rey are not impressive. Letter grades assigned to 11 out of 16 beaches listed in the study are as follows: Malibu Point = B; Surfrider Beach = F; Malibu Pier = D; Topanga Point = C; Will Rogers Beach = C; Santa Monica Canyon = D; Santa Monica Pier = F; Pico-Kenter storm drain = C: Ashland storm drain = F; Venice Pier = A; Mother's Beach = F.{11}
The study conducted by the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project (under the direction of Dr. Robert Haile - USC School of Medicine) in the summer of 1995, was the first large -scale epidemiological study in the nation with the designated purpose of investigating, the adverse health affects associated with swimming in ocean waters contaminated with urban runoff.{13} During the course of the study - 15,492 beachgoers who swam at three Santa Monica beaches (Santa Monica Beach, Will Rogers Beach, and Surfrider Beach) were interviewed. Water samples were collected at various distances and analyzed for Total and Fecal coliforms, Enterococci, and E. coli. Nine to fourteen days after the beach interviews - 13, 278 follow-up telephone interviews were conducted to ascertain any occurrence of eighteen different medical symptoms. The study ultimately concluded that there is an increased risk of illness associated with swimming in areas with high densities of bacterial indicators. Furthermore, high densities of bacterial indicators were measured on a significant number of survey days, particularly in front of active storm drains.{13}
In a lawsuit filed by the environmental groups - Natural Resources Defense Council and the Santa Monica Baykeeper, plaintiff attorneys presented evidence that identified CalTrans as the single largest contributor of pollution into the Santa Monica Bay (trash, oil, grease, heavy metals and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons). United States District Judge Edward Rafeedie issued an injunction on November 18, 1994, essentially forcing CalTrans to take steps in preventing runoff from its highways and maintenance facilities. The decision ushered in a legal precedent for the nation, because it was the first time a public agency had been held new standards.{20} Court observers reported that several top CalTrans officials openly admitted to never having read the prevention guidelines. Ms. Gail Feuer, senior attorney for the NRDC commented after the verdict , "This court has sent a clear message: Polluters beware - you can no longer throw up you hands and claim poverty as an excuse for polluting the ocean. The Clean Water Act demands that you find resources to clean up your stormwater pollution". Mr. Terry Tamminen of the Santa Monica Baykeeper added, "One after the other said that they had not taken the [Clean Water] Act seriously until we filed suit".{20} The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Santa Monica Baykeeper have also settled with the cities of Beverly Hills, El Segundo, and Hermosa Beach under the same storm-water permit. Additionally, both groups have filed suit against the Port of Long Beach and several local industries.
On June 11, 1996, the Los Angeles County Supervisors voted unanimously (4-0) to settle a federal lawsuit brought by the NRDC, detailing Los Angeles County's failure to adequately address the runoff pollution problem within its jurisdiction. Apparently, Los Angeles County had not been meeting the minimum requirements set forth in the Clean Water Act, to develop a storm-water monitoring program and to study the effects of storm-water pollution on the Santa Monica Bay. As part of the multi-million dollar settlement, Los Angeles County will spend 5 million dollars on an educational program, to teach area residents and businesses about storm-water pollution and how to prevent it. About 630,000 dollars will be earmarked for a study of storm-water pollution effects on the Santa Monica Bay, and another 1.2 million dollars will be allocated for controlling storm-water pollution itself.{21}
The Clean Water Act has been up for review and reauthorization since the early 1990s, and the 104th Congress with a Republican majority has proposed sweeping changes as part of revising the law. H.R. 961, a bill sponsored by Representative Bud Schuster [R-PA] has already passed the House (240-185) in October of 1995.{19} The approved bill makes storm-water management completely voluntary, by eliminating all permits which require a city or county to comply with regulations that control the flow and toxicity of storm runoff. Industries, construction sites, and cities with fewer than 100,000 residents (78 of Los Angeles County's 89 cities) would be exempt from stormwater requirements. In addition, 84 sewage treatment plants (including Los Angeles County) serving coastal cities would be eligible to dump sewage into the ocean without secondary treatment (biological processes utilized by treatment plants to reduce pollution), a basic level requirement in current law. The bill also puts off for 15 years or more years, controls on overflows of sewage from combined and separate sanitary sewer systems, a frequent cause of beach closings and fish contamination (detrimental to the 55 million dollar a year sportfishing industry in the Santa Monica Bay). Furthermore, the standards for all but a handful of the 70,000 toxic pollutants in use by industry would be based on weaker criterion requiring less stringent treatment.{19} Needless to say, the Republican backed bill is supported by business leaders and has drawn sharp criticism from environmental groups. Mr. Roger Gorke, a science and policy analyst with Heal the Bay asserts, "there is the very real possibility we could see the undoing of all the good that has been done". It should be noted that re-elected incumbent House members, Mr.Henry A. Waxman [D] - District 29 and Ms. Jane Harman [D] - District 36, voted against H.R. 961.{16}
One of the most powerful political bodies in the state is the California Coastal Commission. The mission of the California Coastal Commission as outlined in the California Coastal Act, includes the protection, restoration, and enhancement of coastal waters by restricting development outside cities, and preserving wetlands and sensitive habitats. According to the Coastal Commission, non-point source pollution (urban runoff) is a very real concern since it "impedes the full achievement of the Coastal Act goals, therefore, the commission, in partnership with the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and other public and private entities, is developing and implementing a strategy to use its planning, regulatory, and leadership capabilities to reduce polluted runoff to coastal waters".{18} The beginnings of the Coastal Commission can be traced to Proposition 20, when in 1972, voters overwhelmingly reacted to the rapid development and destruction of the California coast. By 1975, the state legislature turned Proposition 20 into law by creating a permanent independent body. The Coastal Commission is made up of 12 members, whereby the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Senate Rules Committee appoint four member each. As with most bureaucracies, the Coastal Commission is not without its share of controversy.
The Santa Monica City Manager's office was accused in March of 1995, of using public resources and a city-paid lobbyist to assist former Santa Monica Mayor and current Councilwoman Judy Abdo, in her campaign to win an appointment on the California Coastal Commission. The month long effort on Councilwoman Abdo's behalf was done without the knowledge of most of the Santa Monica City Council, including the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem Asha Greenberg stated, "I think it is extremely political career". City Manager John Jalili justified the actions of his office by stating that Santa Monica benefits from having an elected official on the commission. When asked why she had not put the issue on the council agenda, Councilwoman Abdo replied, "I had not thought to do so".{17}
Political maneuvering to gain control of the California Coastal Commission was initiated by the selection of Garden Grove Assemblyman Curt Pringle [R] as Assembly Speaker on January 4, 1996. The turn of events seemed strangely coincidental since the commission was scheduled to cast important votes a week later, on a real estate developer's plan to build 3,300 homes on part of the Bolsa Chica wetlands and nearby mesa, refuge to a number of rare birds.{15} Assemblyman Pringle replaced four commission members appointed by former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown [D-San Francisco], with four steadfast pro-development commissioners, two of whom had battles with the commission over their personal violations of the Coastal Act. Since July of this year, the four appointees and Speaker Pringle with Governor Wilson's approval, launced an attack on the commission by attempting to fire Executive Director Peter Douglas to gain control. A tremendous amount of public support caused the eight Republicans on the commission to back down, but not before making all their intentions known, of putting into place changes in the commission's procedure that would in effect dismantle the Coastal Act.{14}
Pollution as a source of contention will always be a part of any industrialized society. The question of when and where excessiveness comes into play, is probably best surmised by a cost-benefit analysis. The points to be made on both sides of the issue are: how much are we willing to sacrifice nature for our ever exhaustive material needs, and how much of our world competitiveness is the idea of 'Mother Earth' worth to our minds, bodies, and souls. A simple matter of fact that eludes many individuals, is the notion that a margin of reasonable profit is not necessarily linked to the condition of greed. In addition, it is clear from past experiences, that environmental concerns are best taken care of before they spiral out of control. The City of Santa Monica has taken the first steps in a diversified and directed plan for living with nature.
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