Report: Little Progress In Reducing County Storm Drain Pollution

SANTA MONICA – A local environmental group has released a report examining progress in stormwater pollution reduction efforts across Los Angeles County. In the report the group, Heal the Bay, concludes that many local municipalities are struggling to reach their stated goals, the failure of which is resulting in poor water quality for all communities across the region.

The Stormwater Report examined data from 12 watershed management groups over a six-year period, from 2012 to 2018, in an attempt to assess progress made toward the county’s stated stormwater pollution reduction goals.

Stormwater is the single greatest source of pollution in LA County’s rivers, lakes, and ocean, yet the report finds that as a whole the county has made less than 10% progress towards completing their goals.

The report also discovered that monitoring and enforcing stormwater pollution was made more difficult by a lack of transparency. As a result, many local municipalities are not only not making meaningful progress towards reducing stormwater pollution, but that information is not being made readily available to the public who are directly impacted by the pollution problem.

“Heal the Bay’s Stormwater Report shows six years of shockingly minimal progress in cleaning up LA’s stormwater,” said Dr. Shelley Luce, Heal the Bay’s CEO, in a statement accompanying the report’s release. “We urge officials to take immediate action by strengthening regulations that hold polluters accountable for implementing multi-benefit stormwater projects. The power of local water in LA can only be realized if we protect and clean this precious resource.”

According to the California State Water Resources Control Board there are 208 waterbodies in the LA region that are identified as ‘impaired’, containing multiple pollutants such as bacteria, heavy metals, nutrients, pesticides, and trash. Because of that pollution those waterbodies are not able to support their intended beneficial uses, such as fishing, swimming and wildlife habitat.

One of the problems that Heal the Bay identified was the way the county manages its stormwater. Water quality is significantly worse in the 72 hours following a rain event. The reason for that lies in the region’s storm drain system being separated from the sewer system. Whilst sewage is sent to treatment facilities to be cleaned before it is discharged, stormwater flows directly from the streets, through the storm drains and out to the rivers and ocean. Even during dry weather, runoff from driveways, parking lots, sidewalks, and illegal dumping ends up in the stormdrain system. Because of that separation of the stormwater and sewer systems then, pollutants that pose serious risks to public and environmental health are able to flow freely to the receiving waters without cleaning.

With the county’s MS4 Permit, the primary mechanism for regulating city and county stormwater pollutant discharge, up for renewal in early 2020, the report concludes that many groups are now woefully behind schedule.

There are positives in the report though. It is noted that funding from the Safe, Clean Water Program will become available in Spring 2020, which would increase available funding for stormwater projects by some $280 million per year. This will more than double the amount spent thus far by municipalities on stormwater projects in LA County.

The report also notes that those funds could be further leveraged with other sources, including Measure A (LA County Safe, Clean Neighborhood Parks and Beaches Protection), Measure M (LA County Traffic Improvement Plan),Measure H (LA County Homelessness Initiative), Prop 1 (CA State Stormwater Grant Program), and Prop 68 (CA State Parks, Environment, and Water Bond).

“Stormwater has the potential to be a wonderful resource for water supply, recreation, and so much more. But right now, it is more of a hazard polluting our waterways. We need to step up cleanup efforts if we are to see water quality improvements in our lifetimes. We should not have to wait 60years for clean water,” says Annelisa Moe, Water Quality Scientist at Heal the Bay and lead author of the Stormwater Report.

The report concludes that with those new funding opportunities at hand, and a more rigorous MS4 permitting and oversight process, more stormwater projects will be able to move forward. Those projects, the group believes, could significantly improve water quality throughout the county, protecting both public and environmental health, while also providing multiple additional benefits to local communities through such as a new water supply, improved air quality, and climate resiliency.

The full Stormwater Report can be found online at: https://healthebay.org/stormwater-report/