Meeting could clear the waters at Crystal Cove

Alex Coolman

CRYSTAL COVE -- The battle between environmentalists and the Irvine

Co. over the subject of storm water discharges shifts to Sacramento

today, where the state water board will discuss its rules for determining

which areas of the coast deserve special protection.

The meeting has the potential to affect regulations for 34 regions of

California coastline, including Crystal Cove, that are considered “areas

of special biological significance” under the state’s Ocean Plan.

Technically, said state water resources board deputy director Tom

Howard, the board will only be discussing the rules for determining what

areas of the coast should receive this special designation.

But the meeting has become a focal point in the clash between

environmental advocates and the Irvine Co. because of another issue the

state board may address: the question of what, if anything, can be dumped

in a protected area like Crystal Cove.

In Newport Beach, environmentalists and regional water board officials

have worked for years on the assumption that dumping urban runoff into

the area is prohibited.

Groups such as Orange County CoastKeeper and the Alliance to Rescue

Crystal Cove have blown the whistle repeatedly when they’ve witnessed

water being dumped at the cove, and the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality

Control Board has levied large fines for such actions.

But last month, the Irvine Co., which has been on the receiving end of

many of the environmentalists’ charges, brought up a new argument: the

rules on dumping in biologically significant areas, it contends, apply

only to treated sewage, not to urban runoff.

“If you look at [these] areas up and down the coast, many of them have

similar situations with storm water,” said company spokesman Rich Elbaum.

“It’s not something that’s unique to this project.”

Elbaum contends that strictly limiting runoff in such areas generally

has not been state board policy.

Howard agrees.

“Since it hasn’t been read [as prohibiting runoff] in the past, there

has been no prohibition of storm water discharges into [the protected]

areas anywhere in the state, as far as I know,” he said.

Environmentalists look at the issue differently. Linda Sheehan,

director of the San Francisco-based Center for Marine Conservation,

argues that the Ocean Plan has always intended to prohibit the dumping of

runoff.

“Just because the water board hasn’t been enforcing the law doesn’t

mean that discharges should be allowed,” she said. “I would like to see

them go forward instead of backward” in terms of their protection of

special areas.

Garry Brown, director of Orange County CoastKeeper, said he hoped some

sort of balance could be struck between a wholesale ban on water flows to

special areas, which would undoubtedly prove logistically complicated,

and a complete surrender on the question of runoff.

“I got the feeling [from talking with state board officials] that

everybody agreed that there shouldn’t be any new direct discharges,”

Brown said.