LA’s Efforts to Transform Water Quality at Three Heal the Bay F-Grade Beaches

Today the local environmental group Heal the Bay issued its annual beach report card in time for the start of the summer beach season, providing beach goers with important water quality information. Without fail, over the last few years, Santa Ynez Beach, Castle Rock Beach and Inner Cabrillo Beach have received poor grades when it comes to their water quality.

That is about to change.

Working with regional partners including the County of Los Angeles, the Cities of El Segundo and Santa Monica and environmental groups such as Heal the Bay, the City of Los Angeles has built various structural best management practices at each of these locations to significantly improve their water quality.

There are currently 23 low-flow diversions, or structures that divert dry-weather polluted urban runoff from storm drains to the sanitary sewer system, dotting the Santa Monica Bay coastline. Using funds from Proposition O, the water quality bond measure passed in 2004, Los Angeles is in the process of upgrading eight of these diversions to handle dry weather flow year round. The upgrade of these low-flow diversions has the added benefit of ensuring the City’s compliance with federal water quality mandates related to dry weather flow. Other locations along Santa Monica Bay, most notably, Castlerock and Santa Ynez Canyon, whose low-flow diversions are owned and operated by the County of Los Angeles, have experienced recent maintenance issues. The City has been working closely with the County to resolve those challenges.

Inner Cabrillo Beach has been a bigger challenge and while the City hasn’t achieved full compliance with water quality mandates for this location yet, it is dedicated to reaching that goal. The City of Los Angeles has spent $20 million over the last seven years in projects ranging from public outreach to repairing sewer lines to the replacement of sand to improve water quality at this popular beach. Currently, the Los Angeles Harbor Department is preparing to construct a bird exclusion structure that will be completed for the 2010 summer season. Ongoing monitoring efforts are planned to determine the success of this latest water quality improvement project.

“We recognize that these three beaches have been problematic in years past but we are committed to working with our community partners to find solutions that will improve the quality of water in our rivers, lakes and beaches,” stated Enrique Zaldivar, Director of the Bureau of Sanitation. “Clean water in Los Angeles is a team effort,” continued Zaldivar.

For more information about the City’s Watershed Protection Program, please visit LAStormwater.org and join us at facebook.com/lastormwaterprogram.

2010 Resolution - Time to Walk The Talk

By: Joyce Amaro
Stormwater Public Education Manager

With a week of rain forecasted, last Sunday afternoon seemed like the perfect time for me to put my New Year resolution of doing “personal community clean-ups” into action. With my dog Dodger at my side and armed with a plastic bag and a pair of gardening gloves, Dodger and I walked a short half mile loop in the Alhambra neighborhood where I live as the drizzle began to fall. Dodger sniffed the trees and I picked up about a pound of trash in the streets’ gutters.

Now I’ve been working in the area of watershed protection for close to 20 years (February marks my 18th year with the City of Los Angeles’ Stormwater Public Education Program Division), and I know the realities and challenges of keeping our local creeks, rivers and beaches clean. I’ve seen the pictures of trash-strewn beaches and am aware of the amount of trash that finds its way into our regional waterways. But even my years of experience didn’t prepare me for the amount of cigarette butts I found in my own relatively clean middle-class neighborhood. I found plenty of flyers that had blown off of cars, several plastic candy and gum wrappers, a plastic bag here and there. This was to be expected. What I didn’t expect were the 83 cigarette butts I picked up on my half mile walk. That’s right – 83 within a half mile! I was surprised and became almost obsessive in picking them up towards the end of our walk.

I came home on Sunday having had my eyes re-opened as to how a neighborhood can appear clean, but still generate a significant number of cigarette butts that can wreak havoc on our ocean. I also returned home re-committed to continue doing personal community clean-ups at least once a week in my neighborhood. While its difficult for me to participate in larger organized community clean-ups, I can still do my part in keeping our ocean clean by doing my own personal community clean-up every week. It’s a great way to get some exercise and do my part in reducing the amount of trash flowing to our ocean.

I’ve talked the talk for almost two decades here in LA. Now it’s time to walk the talk as well!

*Photo courtesy of Long Beach's Signal Tribune

LOS ANGELES AND EL SEGUNDO CELEBRATE A COMPLETED WATER QUALITY PROJECT

Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl of District 11, El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell, Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels and other dignitaries celebrated today the completion of the Imperial Highway Sunken Median Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) project. A gathering was held on Imperial Highway between Pershing Drive and Main Street, and was concluded with theplanting of a tree named "Fred" by Tree Musketeers youth manager Julian Poyourow.

The project was conceptualized by the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation as one of the 32 stormwater improvements funded by the voter-approved Proposition O Clean Water Bond. The project installed a biofiltration system comprised of vegetated swales and an infiltration trench that will collect runoff from a 7.5-acre area and remove bacteria, oil, trash and suspended solids from stormwater that would otherwise be discharged to Santa Monica Bay. Shrubs and trees were also planted in the project area, and an automated irrigation system that uses recycled water was installed.

For more information about this project, visit www.eng.lacity.org/iuprs or call the Department of Public Works, Public Affairs Office at (213) 978-0333. To learn about the Tree Musketeers, see http://www.treemusketeers.org/.