Enforcing the Law in San Diego
By Bruce Reznik,
San Diego Baykeeper
San Diego is known for its beautiful beaches, idyllic climate and family-friendly attractions like Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. Less celebrated, however, are the chronic water pollution problems that have caused San Diego Bay to be ranked among the nation’s most toxic. San Diego has the dubious distinction of leading the nation with 1,349 beach and bay advisories due to elevated bacteria levels in 2000. That year clean water became front-page news in San Diego when area beaches were posted as unsafe every single day of that year. Five years later, despite legal and public policy advances, water pollution is still front-page news in San Diego.

For a decade, San Diego Baykeeper has focused on tackling this threat. Our first step was to identify and challenge those agencies and companies that were the most recalcitrant in managing polluted runoff. First up were two of San Diego’s bay front shipyards – Southwest Marine and National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO). These two mega-companies – owned by defense giants The Carlysle Group and General Dynamics, respectively – had been letting heavy metals (like zinc, copper, tributyltin, mercury, petroleum, chromium, and lead), and extremely toxic compounds (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons – PAHs, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls – PCBs) runoff from their sites directly into San Diego Bay for decades, creating ‘dead-zones’ around their facilities.

In 1997, a San Diego Baykeeper lawsuit against NASSCO resulted in a settlement agreement that required the shipyard to conduct a complete environmental audit of its 75-acre facility, to reduce contaminated runoff from its site, and fund restoration of least tern and clapper rail nesting sites in the nearby Sweetwater River Refuge.

A subsequent San Diego Baykeeper lawsuit against Southwest Marine resulted in a 1999 U.S. District Court ruling against the shipyard, a $799,000 fine and a court order for the company to build a stormwater diversion facility and increased monitoring to identify and stop future toxic runoff. This historic case was appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear the polluter’s final appeal in June 2001, ultimately setting important precedent for environmental compliance. Southwest Marine now touts its environmental record as a model for others, going so far as to highlight an industry award they have received for its “voluntary” and innovative stormwater diversion system.

Next up was the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Working in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), San Diego Baykeeper reached a consent decree in December 1997 with Caltrans that forced the state agency to reduce the polluted stormwater that flows untreated from local highways and construction sites into San Diego watersheds. The agreement required Caltrans to undertake annual cleaning of the agency’s 15,000 storm drains in San Diego. These storm drains had never been cleaned prior to the suit! Caltrans was also required to underwrite a $2.5 million pilot project to implement and evaluate innovative stormwater pollution control devices installed at a dozen sites. This pilot program has reduced pollution from San Diego’s largest highways and also demonstrated the viability of stormwater control devices such as media filters, constructed wetlands and bio-swales to reduce runoff.

San Diego Baykeeper also targeted the City of Encinitas, a picturesque coastal city, and a surfer town with a large tourism industry. Though cities are required by California law to develop a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program, Encinitas did almost nothing to reduce or treat stormwater runoff. They had failed to conduct regular inspections or monitoring of stormwater discharges. This inattention to their stormwater runoff resulted in flooding of homes and businesses, as well as discharges of pollutants into local waters, particularly during major storms. To make matters worse, the city was using a portable pump to illegally discharge polluted stormwater onto Beacon’s Beach.

In 1999, San Diego Baykeeper signed a consent decree with the City of Encinitas requiring the city to develop and implement a model municipal stormwater program. That program includes installing new pollution control devices, hiring dedicated city staff to implement stormwater improvements, carry out a public education campaign, and monitor the city’s stormwater runoff during rainstorms. Encinitas also agreed to provide $100,000 to restore Cottonwood Creek. As a result of the settlement, Encinitas’ new Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program is a model for the region, even receiving national recognition from NRDC in 2003.

The Battle Ahead
While San Diego Baykeeper has made progress on many fronts, the last great battlefield in the fight against stormwater runoff is our land-use planning. The vast majority of San Diego’s development has followed the typically destructive pattern of southern California suburban sprawl – loss of wetlands and other natural habitats and countless new miles of impervious concrete, rooftops, and streets. The result: lots and lots of dirty water.

To locals, it seems as though entire communities of industrial, commercial, and residential land uses sprang up overnight, bringing with them the daunting task of managing billions of gallons of runoff ever year.

San Diego Baykeeper recently hired a land-use expert who is coordinating community organization efforts in two of the region’s fastest-growing areas – North San Diego County and South San Diego Bay. By working in coalition with more than a dozen environmental, community and labor organizations, San Diego Baykeeper has been working to impact land-use decisions to preserve open space and promote low-impact developments. While these efforts are still at their infancy, San Diego Baykeeper’s efforts are centered on preserving the last area of undeveloped bay front in the City of Chula Vista, and working with the City of Carlsbad to create a multi-million dollar fund to purchase and preserve open space in San Diego County.

Jersey’s New Stormwater Regulations Help Communities and Protect the Environment
New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the nation, is experiencing growing pains. People are moving from settled areas into the countryside. The price we are paying for this sprawling development is degradation of streams, diminished water supplies and flooded communities. All around the country, existing regulations and prevailing land use development practices have proven to be ineffective in controlling development’s contribution to these growing problems and this downward spiral.
New Jersey adopted revised stormwater regulations in February 2004. These new rules require developers to use stormwater mitigation (i.e. best management practices) whenever land is developed. The rules focus on reducing the volume of stormwater runoff, ensuring needed groundwater recharge, and putting in place stormwater runoff water quality standards. These new regulations will not stop growth, but they will ensure that new developments take into account how they are changing the landscape and take steps to reduce stormwater runoff.

Spreading Around the Waste
The Pew Oceans Commission reports that sprawl is consuming land at five times the rate of actual population increase in many coastal communities. More than one quarter of all land developed as urban/suburban areas since European settlement was developed between 1982-1997 (last year with figures).