No Day at the Beach

L.A. County legal strategy puts swimmers at risk

This week, the State Water Board heard Los Angeles County’s appeal on the inclusion of enforceable beach water quality standards in the county’s stormwater permit.  The county appealed the permit despite the fact that the L.A. Regional Board modified the permit nearly three years ago and it has been relatively successful in getting a lot of beaches cleaned up of fecal pollution during the summer months.

The county’s dubious arguments stem from its challenge to putting enforceable numeric limits in the permit.  In the case of Santa Monica Bay, the limits are that every beach along the Bay must comply with fecal bacteria water quality standards 100% of the time from April through October.  Some beaches, like Santa Monica Pier, Dockweiler at Ballona Creek, and Malibu Surfrider exceed limits dozens of times each summer.

Criminal Justice

Signal Hill is leading the charge to weaken water regulations.

A major court decision was handed down by an Orange County state Superior Court Judge on July 2 that could have a range of impacts on efforts to address water pollution in LA County. (More in the L.A. Times and Daily Breeze.)

Corps Conflict

The L.A. River

I recently had the chance to meet with Col. Thomas Magness, the head of the Los Angeles unit of the Army Corps of Engineers, which made the recent horrible decision to declare only a small portion of the Los Angeles River a so-called Traditionally Navigable Water. It’s a complicated story, but the Corps has jurisdiction over much of the river. The Corps, based on its interpretation of an anti-environmental 2005 Supreme Court decision, has decided to leave large portions of the river, including the Arroyo Seco, Tujunga Wash and Glendale Narrows, unprotected from pollution safeguards under the Clean Water Act – based largely on the fact that you can’t get a steamship through them.