The biggest winner from the project is Long Beach, where workers routinely have to scoop floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris flowing from dozens of communities upstream before it litters the city’s coastline. In August 2010, crews began installing the stainless-steel, full-capture trash devices inside nearly 12,000 catch basins. The simple mesh contraptions sit just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system and can catch debris as small as a cigarette butt.

Another 5,400 drains in the most-littered areas also were outfitted with street-level retractable screens as a second layer of defense.

Link to article

The lawsuit was brought against the county because the county’s flood control district exceeded the pollutant limits of its MS4 permit. However, the county claims that upstream neighbors are responsible for some of the pollutant loads. There are concerns that this ruling could lead to litigation between municipalities regarding who is responsible for stormwater pollutants.

The biggest conference and exhibition in the wastewater and stormwater world is coming to Los Angeles Oct 15-19. WEF has kindly compiled a list of the California presenters (wow over 100 people !) – how many CWEA members can you spot?

Click here for a list of California speakers and session numbers (Excel) >
Click here to access My WEFTEC Planner >

It’s an environmental learning experience for children of all ages. It’s home to five coastal habitats and SoCal’s only coastal prairie. It’s an oasis. It’s an environmental cleaning machine for the ocean.

It’s the heart of Malibu. It’s one smart park. The Legacy Park Project, the centerpiece of the City of Malibu’s $50 million dollar commitment to clean water, is a cutting-edge concept with far-reaching civic, educational, and environmental benefits for residents, visitors, and the generations to come.

Employing state-of-the-art technology, it is a central park that will work as an environmental cleaning machine, reducing pollution impacts in Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon, and the world famous Surfrider Beach, and will provide a
living learning center for five coastal habitats.

Featured Dinner Speakers:
Bob Brager, Public Works Director, City of Malibu
Elizabeth Shavelson, Public Works Analyst, City of Malibu
Steve Clary, Principal, RMC Water & Environment

When:
Thursday, July 29, 2011
5:00 p.m. Tour
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. Presentation

Where:
Tour: Stormwater Treatment Facility
(salmon colored building):
Legacy Park
23500 Civic Center Way
Malibu 90265

Dinner: Guido’s Malibu (walk next door)
3874 Cross Creek Road, Malibu

RSVP:
By July 22nd with meal choice to:
alecm@jwce.com or call Alec Mackie
at (714) 428-4614.

See flyer for more information

Price: FREE TO WERF SUBSCRIBERS
 
What level of treatment is typical for various BMPs and green infrastructure practices? What pollutant removal mechanisms do they employ? How can I use this information to help select and design effective stormwater controls?

Representatives from the International Stormwater BMP Database will answer these questions and more, as they provide stormwater managers, consultants, and others with the latest BMP performance evaluation results for four pollutant categories – bacteria, nutrients, sediment, and metals – as well as volume reduction.

This evaluation is based on analysis of the data contained in the International Stormwater BMP Database and is summarized in a new series of technical memos. To learn more, visit www.bmpdatabase.org.

• Non-Industrial Source Control
• Pretreatment Automation Tools
• Pretreatment 101 – how and why did the pretreatment regulations come to be
• Regulatory Issues
• EPA Audit Experiences
• Stormwater Issues
• Pollution Prevention Outreach Successes
• Permit Writing War Stories

The 2012 CWEA P3S Conference will be held February 27-29, 2012 in Southern California.

We would love to have you present your work and interesting “war stories” as we all spend some time learning together. Please send a brief description of your presentation for consideration to Mike Zedek (mzedek@ocsd.com).

Large volumes of polluted stormwater degrade the nation’s rivers, lakes and aquatic habitats and contribute to downstream flooding. Green infrastructure captures and filters pollutants by passing stormwater through soils and retaining it on site. Effective green infrastructure tools and techniques include green roofs, permeable materials, alternative designs for streets and buildings, trees, rain gardens and rain harvesting systems.

As part of the strategy, EPA will work with partners including local governments, watershed groups, tribes and others in ten cities that have utilized green infrastructure and have plans for additional projects. EPA will encourage and support expanded use of green infrastructure in these cities and highlight them as models for other municipalities around the country. The ten cities are: Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Jacksonville, FL.; Kansas City, MO.; Los Angeles, CA; Puyallup, WA; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Washington, D.C. and neighboring Anacostia Watershed communities.

EPA will continue to work with other federal agencies, state and local governments, tribes, municipalities, and the private sector to identify opportunities for using green infrastructure and provide assistance to communities implementing green approaches to control stormwater. EPA will also provide additional tools to help states and communities leverage green infrastructure opportunities within other innovative environmental projects.

For more information on EPA’s green infrastructure agenda: http://epa.gov/greeninfrastructure

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week named the Strand Infiltration Project as the winner of the 2010 Performance and Innovation in the State Revolving Fund Creating Environmental Success – or PISCES – Award.

The award was created in 2005 and recognizes public works projects aimed at cutting down environmental pollution that are efficiently designed, managed and financed.

“It is truly an honor for the city and everyone involved in this project to have this recognition for all of the hard work and planning that went into the Strand Infiltration Trench Project,” Hermosa Beach Mayor Peter Tucker said in a statement. “Our city is committed to exploring new opportunities to make Hermosa Beach green.”

It is the second award the city has received for the ambitious project, which prevents filthy storm water from reaching local waters off the coast. In December, the Strand Infiltration Trench was named Project of the Year by the American Public Works Association.

City engineers designed the project to take advantage of the city’s location – on a massive sand dune – by using sand as a natural filtration system for polluted urban water runoff.

Work was completed in April and funded with about $950,850 in American Recovery and Reinvestment

The infiltration trench lies underground and stretches about 1,000 feet south of the city’s pier, collecting storm water and filtering it before returning it to groundwater tables.

Water is collected in city storm drains and processed through a pretreatment system, which removes trash, sediment and other toxins. The storm water is then filtered by sand to remove bacteria as it slowly flows safely to replenish ground water.

The infiltration trench is the second public works project completed by city engineers within the last year aimed at reducing the beach town’s environmental footprint.

In October, work was completed on the Pier Avenue Beautification Project. Improvements to the city’s main thoroughfare include wider sidewalks, a landscape center median and an additional storm drain and water-filtration system that further keeps polluted water from reaching the ocean.

The recent EPA award is the second the city has received from the agency for the pair of recently completed public works projects.

In December, the Pier Avenue project earned a 2010 Environmental Achievement Award from the EPA.

Hermosa Beach officials say the successful projects – and the national attention they are receiving – are proof the city is moving forward with bold environmental initiatives.

“We’re pushing the envelope when it comes to improving the environment,” Councilman Michael DiVirgilio, who has been leading the city’s environmental agenda, said in December. “And we’re doing it aggressively.”

City Manager Steve Burrell, who traveled to Sacramento last week on behalf of the city to accept the award, touted city engineers for their work on the project and said the new system has not encountered any problems, despite recent heavy rains.

“It’s a demonstration project and the idea is to show that this type of system could work,” Burrell said.

Link to full article

It is one of the Southland’s enduring contradictions. The region that laid pipe across hundreds of miles and tunneled through mountains to import water also built an extensive storm drain system to get rid of rainfall as quickly as possible.

That’s exactly what happened during the last week, when tens of billions of gallons of runoff that could lessen the region’s need for those faraway sources were dumped into the Pacific. Enough water poured from Los Angeles streets to supply well over 130,000 homes for a year.

As Southern California’s traditional water supplies diminish under a variety of pressures, all that runoff sheeting across sidewalks and roads into the maws of storm drains is finally getting some respect.

“This isn’t wastewater until we waste it,” said Noah Garrison, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who co-wrote a 2009 paper on capturing and reusing storm water.

The report concluded that the region could increase local supplies by an amount equal to more than half of Los Angeles’ annual water demand by incorporating relatively simple water-harvesting techniques in new construction and redevelopments. These include installing cisterns and designing landscaping to retain runoff and let it seep into the ground.

Los Angeles is poised to adopt an ordinance that takes a step in that direction. Most new and redeveloped commercial, industrial and larger apartment projects would have to be designed to capture the runoff generated by the first three-quarters of an inch of rain. New single-family homes would have to install a rain-harvesting device, such as a rain barrel or a hose that diverts water from gutters to landscaping.

But the proposed rules would save only a fraction of the city’s runoff. “If we’re able to convince people to do it on their own, there’s so much more” that can be captured, said Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels. “The really important thing to do is unpave and change the texture of Los Angeles.”

Water-quality regulations, which are clamping down on runoff pollution, are another big impetus for changing attitudes. In South Los Angeles, the city is converting a former bus depot into a nine-acre wetland park that will retain and filter runoff, keeping contaminants out of the L.A. River.

“I believe we will be able to start changing the footprint of the city to make it more water-friendly and hopefully look at storm water as a resource and a benefit,” said Adel H. Hagekhalil, assistant director of the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation.

The storm system dumped copious amounts of snow — at least 10 to 12 feet and in some spots far more — in the Sierra Nevada, washing away vestiges of a three-year drought that ended last year. Statewide, 61% of the snowpack, or snow water content, normally measured on April 1 is already on the ground. Storage at most major reservoirs is well above average for this time of year. Dam operators have been releasing water to make sure they have enough space for inflow later in the season.

Managers are cautioning that snow and rain usually taper off in early winter under the La Niñ??a weather conditions expected this year. “The characteristics, unfortunately, of La Niñas are generally a pretty good start and then a frequent lapse. Quite often January, February do not measure up,” said Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program.

But even if they don’t, state hydrologist Maury Roos said California has been so thoroughly soaked this month that the year’s water supplies will probably be above average.

In the Eastern Sierra, which supplies Los Angeles with a portion of its water, some Department of Water and Power stations have registered eye-popping measurements. At Independence, precipitation as of Tuesday was 549% of the norm for this time of year. Some areas were buried under snow depths usually not seen until the end of the winter.

James McDaniel, the DWP’s senior assistant general manager, said the snowpack at Mammoth Pass had shot up to the levels of 1982-83, one of California’s wettest winters. “We’ll need more storms later in the season to build on that,” he said, adding: “There’s no denying this is a great beginning to the season.”

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which imports water from Northern California and the Colorado River, is refilling local reserves that had dwindled to levels that forced the agency to cut sales to member agencies.

“I think we’re feeling a lot more comfortable about the availability of water supplies,” said Debra Man, the MWD’s assistant general manager. Still, she said the agency was not ready to scratch allocations that have reduced demand by more than 20%. “I think we’re going to wait and see what January, February and March look like.”

McDaniel also said L.A. would wait until winter’s end before deciding if it would lift the water rationing imposed during the three-year drought. “Statewide storage has recovered well,” he said. “But the piece of the puzzle that is not where we’d like to see it is the Colorado River,” a source stuck in a long-term drought.

Link to LA Times article

Every time it rains, workers in Long Beach rush to the mouth of the Los Angeles River to scoop up the floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris before it’s all swept onto local beaches or pulled out to sea.

Now, a deceptively simple solution is underway to fight the ongoing problem of river trash by intercepting it before it’s washed into the river in the first place.

Over the next year, 16 cities in southeastern Los Angeles County are installing screens beneath nearly every storm drain that flows into the lower Los Angeles River.

Once the custom-built stainless steel devices are installed inside nearly 12,000 catch basins, authorities expect them to keep 840,000 pounds of debris — the equivalent of about 450 Volkswagen Beetles — from reaching the ocean each year. The garbage that washes off city streets and highways has long been identified as a major source of pollution that can degrade coastal habitat and float thousands of miles away on ocean currents.

The project will also help communities along the Los Angeles River comply with state and federal clean-water rules that require they capture nearly all the trash that for years has washed into the river.

“This stuff is not just going into the ocean and disappearing,” said Jonathan Bishop, chief deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board. “The long-lasting parts of it, which are primarily the plastics, are essentially moving their way through the currents, impacting marine life and impacting our beaches and our local waters too.”

Described as the largest debris-capturing project in the nation, the clean-up effort is being undertaken by the Gateway Authority, a coalition of cities and public water agencies in southeastern L.A. County, using $10 million in federal stimulus dollars.

The project could serve as a model for similar plans to use grates to cut down on the garbage released in the San Francisco Bay Area. Public works officials have also proposed the same protections in other urban waterways in the Southland, including the San Gabriel River and Ballona Creek.

Crews have gradually been installing a few thousand similar devices in unincorporated Los Angeles County, but this latest project marks the largest and most aggressive attack on river trash.

Officials hope the screens will not only stem the flow of trash onto local beaches and harbors, but also prevent the junk from being carried to the distant reaches of the Pacific Ocean, where scientists have documented a massive vortex of marine litter known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Some researchers say the high concentration of floating plastic debris spreads over an area larger than Texas.

Of greatest concern to environmentalists is discarded plastic packaging such as food wrappers, bottle caps and straws, which easily float through unprotected storm drains and toward the coast.

A soda bottle tossed to the curb in Downey, for instance, is destined for the storm-water system, which will shuttle it to the Los Angeles River and eventually to the ocean about 15 miles away.

The screens to be installed in southeast L.A. County represent a simple, even low-tech, concept, serving as strainers just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system. The 5-millimeter mesh will catch debris as small as a cigarette butt. Workers will have to periodically open a manhole and suck out the trash with a vacuum truck.

Several thousand storm drains in the most littered areas of the county will also be outfitted with street-level retractable screens that act as a second-level of defense, keeping most trash above ground level.

Long Beach, where nearly a third of the devices are being installed, stands to benefit the most because it is at the receiving end for trash flowing from dozens of communities upstream.

“You’ve seen the little signs that say ‘Drains to Ocean’?” said Long Beach City Engineer Mark Christoffels. “Look, that hamburger wrapper that you just tossed in the gutter, it goes through and eventually ends up at our beaches and in the ocean. Now, we’re making a statement here, that we’ve got to capture as much of this as we can.”

Keeping trash from going with the flow

Sixteen cities in southeast L.A. county are installing screens under storm drains that flow into the L.A. River. The project could keep 840,000 pounds of debris from reaching the ocean a year.

But don’t expect the immediate elimination of all trash along the coast, experts said.

The grates, of course, do nothing to reduce littering at the beach or wind-blown debris, and the smallest fragments of plastic and foam will flow through the screens. To avoid flooding, the devices are also designed to swing open during heavy rains.

“It’s certainly not a permanent solution in the sense of eliminating the plastic discharge to the ocean,” said Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, who has studied the flow of garbage through the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers and trawled for trash thousands of miles away on expeditions to the North Pacific.

Moore said much of the debris making it to the ocean is less than 5 millimeters across, mostly industrial plastic and foam pellets that won’t be caught by the screens.

Gateway Authority officials say making the grates any finer would make it difficult for water to flow through them. If the project is successful, they hope communities farther upstream will follow their lead and install the same equipment.

At as much as $4,000 per catch basin, however, the sheer expense is likely to deter many cash-strapped local governments.

Moore of the Algalita Foundation said plastics manufacturers ought to shoulder some of the cost of keeping their products out of the ocean.

“You can’t put this external cost to the throwaway society onto the municipalities and taxpayers,” he said. “They’re asked to do all that work, when really, the plastic industry itself needs to be held responsible.”

Link to full article