After weeks of no rain, it’s finally here and I love it. It feels like winter and it is a much needed natural resource in Southern California.
But when the rain comes, and up to 72 hours after a rainfall of at least 6mm, health authorities issue a health advisory to prevent people from going into the ocean due to the excessive levels of bacteria. As someone who loves the ocean and loves to surf, I understand how this is quite concerning. Heal The Bay recently published an article showing that municipalities are far from meeting the stormwater pollution limits that are expected to be put in place as early as 2021.
So why is all this concerning from an environment perspective? Well, stormwater is the largest source of ocean, rivers and lakes’ pollution in our county. According to Heal The Bay, there is clearly a lack of progress in reducing this issue from a majority of LA County groups.
Here is what Heal The Bay has to say: ” Cities and counties have had nearly 30 years to create and implement plans for reducing stormwater pollution. Heal the Bay’s new Stormwater Report examines data from 12 watershed management groups over six years (from December 2012 to December 2018) to assess progress made toward stormwater pollution reduction goals. Heal the Bay finds that LA County groups are only about 9% complete toward final goals and some groups have fast-approaching deadlines in 2021. The report also reveals that monitoring and enforcing stormwater pollution is made more difficult by a lack of transparent requirements and processes. As a result, many local municipalities are not making meaningful progress to reduce stormwater pollution, and information is not readily available to the public, who are directly impacted by polluted waters. […]
There are 208 waterbodies in the LA region that are identified as impaired by the California State Water Resources Control Board. Many of these waterbodies are impaired by multiple pollutants such as bacteria, heavy metals, nutrients, pesticides, and trash. Impaired waterbodies do not support their intended beneficial uses, including fishing, swimming and wildlife habitat.
Water quality is much worse 72 hours after a significant rain event in LA County. This is because of how LA County manages its stormwater. In our region, the storm drain system is separate from the sewer system. While sewage is sent to treatment facilities to be cleaned before it is discharged, stormwater flows over streets, through storm drains, and out into receiving waters. Along the way it picks up pollutants that pose serious risks to public and environmental health. Even during dry weather, runoff from driveways, parking lots, sidewalks, and illegal dumping ends up in our storm drain system and then flows into local waterbodies untreated.”
So with all this comes the question, what does our city, Manhattan Beach, do to reduce, monitor and/or prevent stormwater pollution? They do have a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Program, which seems to have a good training en educational program, as well as some more proactive actions such as: street sweeping, city’s storm drain catch basins cleanup twice a year, implementation of Best Management Practices on City construction and maintenance activities. For a more complete list, please click here.
But when you think about it, what is also really important to avoid a good amount of pollution is that we do not litter, that we pay attention how well we secure our trash in our bins or in the public trash cans so that no loose packaging escapes in the air and ends up on our streets and drains. So please be mindful about that next time you throw your trash bags in the trash bin and it is not properly tied, or your kids put their snack wrapper in the public trash can.
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