VIC LEIPZIG & LOU MURRAY -- The Natural Perspective

Several new ideas -- some good, some bad -- have surfaced recently about

how to solve the problems of contaminated urban runoff into the ocean off

Huntington Beach.

The county and city have come up with a laudable plan for completely

blocking urban runoff from several of the flood control channels. They

have already made plans to divert the runoff from the flood control pump

stations into the sewer system, where it will receive treatment before

being discharged.

The only problem with this good idea is that not all runoff goes through

the pump stations. Some of it simply goes by gravity straight from the

street curb into the flood control channel.

How can the city and county block this stuff from entering the ocean?

Well, they’ve come up with a way to do that, too. It’s drastic, but it

will work.

They will simply dam off the channels for the summer months. The water

that drains into the channels will be pumped back out and into the

sewers. This way, no runoff at all will get down these channels to the

sea.

I talked with Howard Johnson, the city’s storm water supervisor, and he

is enthusiastic, in part, just because the city and county are

cooperating well on the project.

I talked with Chris Kubasek of the county’s flood control department. He

tells me the barriers and diversions could be installed as soon as the

first week in June and would stay up until Labor Day. They would have to

come down before the rainy season because the amount of water during

storms is much too great to be pumped to the sewers.

What kind of barrier would they use? For the most part, they expect to

use K-rails, those concrete railings that are used on the freeways. These

would be lined with heavy-duty plastic to form a watertight dam.

An even more interesting technology would be used in one channel near

Costa Mesa. The plan there is to use interlocking concrete pieces that

link together like children’s toys -- only these parts weigh two tons

apiece.

The Talbert channel, the Greenville-Banning channel, even the Santa Ana

River would be blocked off.

Is there any downside to these measures? Probably not much. It’s true

that the flood control channels are used by wildlife around here, but

most of that usage is down where the channels are influenced by the tides

and filled with salt water. The proposed barriers would be fairly far

upstream.

The Santa Ana River barrier, for example, would be up at Talbert Avenue

-- “near Costco” is how one agency engineer put it. Most wildlife using

the river and the tidal portions of the channels would not be affected.

As long as the ebb and flow of the salt water in the lower channels

continues, the marshes will stay oxygenated, and the fish and birds

should be just fine.

I think these barriers are a good idea. Unfortunately, there is also a

bad idea that has been getting some play.

This idea is to build runoff outfalls. These would be pipes extending out

to sea to carry runoff out beyond the surf zonewhere swimmers are. This

proposal does nothing to solve the problem; it just moves it to a new

location.

Even the barriers in the flood control channels are only a short-term

solution. The real answer lies partly in changing people’s habits -- our

own habits. We need to stop washing and dumping our waste into the curb

gutters.

The rest of the solution requires that we build the facilities needed to

remove from runoff the pollutants that are going to get into it anyway.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 [email protected] .