Local cities buck state effort to tighten stormwater rules
Kera Abraham
Monterey County Weekly
05/26/2011
Everyone seems to agree that ocean pollution sucks. But when it comes to identifying where it originates, how to reduce it and who should pay for it – then things get murky.
The State Water Resources Control Board is proposing stricter rules to keep polluted runoff out of protected coastal waters known as Areas of Special Biological Significance (ASBS). But the affected Monterey Bay jurisdictions, and their reps in Sacramento, are resisting the regulations as unfunded mandates.
The amendments would require the cities of Pacific Grove, Monterey, Carmel and Pebble Beach (along with the county, Hopkins Marine Station and the Monterey Bay Aquarium) to eliminate dry-weather discharges, cut pollutant loads by 90 percent during the wet season, prevent trash from reaching the bay, and monitor marine life, among other measures.
Assemblymen Bill Monning (D-Carmel) and Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), the Monterey County Mayors’ Association and city of P.G. have raised objections in letters to the state water board.
There’s no proof that urban storm drains are harming the water quality in ASBS, they argue, and the costs of curtailing flows to the bay could cripple already cash-strapped cities. The monitoring program alone would cost Central Coast parties an estimated $2 million over the next five years.
Monterey Mayor Chuck Della Sala asked the board to scale back its demands at a May 18 hearing in Sacramento.
“We agree that we need to keep the ASBS clean,” he says. “But we certainly cannot afford to give the state of California a blank check.”
Water board spokesman David Clegern says grants and low-interest loans may be able to help cities comply with the stricter rules. “There is state and federal money available for these kinds of projects, especially because they are considered ‘green,’” he says. “There’s some flexibility in there.”
