Ventura Coastkeeper

Kiddie Beach, in Channel Islands Harbor, was declared one of California's most polluted beaches for the past several years, per Heal the Bay's annual Beach Report Card. (www.healthebay.org) The high bacteria levels often made the beach unhealthful for swimming.

Ventura Coastkeeper, along with the Beacon Foundation, participated on the Ventura County Kiddie Beach Task Force for almost three years and was the sole community-based organization member for nearly a year. The committee was set up to address the pollution problems, research possible remedies, and advise on the policy for opening and closing the beach. During that time Ventura Coastkeeper made numerous recommendations addressing the water quality problem. Except for finally conducting a DNA test, those recommendations were basically ignored. There was an ongoing conflict regarding cause and remedy; there are birds in the area, which, Harbor officials claim, are the root cause of the pollution. However, it has been shown that the lack of circulation in the Harbor, and Harbor boating practices, contribute to the accumulation of the existing bacteria. The DNA test proved that there is sewage contamination as well.

Urban runoff is amongst the biggest threats to the water quality and ecological integrity of Ventura County’s inland and coastal waterbodies. In particular, stormwater runoff, or the polluted runoff that follows rainstorms, carries high levels of sediment, oil, toxins, metals, bacteria, nutrients, and other pollutants from municipal storms drains, industrial sites, and construction activities into Ventura County’s streams and coastal waters. Furthermore, high volumes of urban stormwater runoff can scour stream banks, degrade riparian habitats, increase sediment loading into waterbodies, and reduce baseflow (groundwater) contributions to rivers and streams that keep them flowing year round. These water quality threats from urban stormwater runoff will be exacerbated by the population growth of Ventura County, which by 2030 is projected to rise by 200,000, from 800,000 to over 1,000,000 residents.

If current trends continue, the development accompanying this population boom will lead to more impervious surfaces that increase the pollutant loads entering our waterways. Despite these trends, stormwater pollution has been exacerbated by the unwillingness of state agencies to take enforcement action against polluters, to prevent these discharges through meaningful regulation, and require Low Impact Development (LID).

VCK’s stormwater campaign is focused on:

1) Coordinating with NRDC, Heal the Bay, and other non profits in a 15 year campaign to strengthen Ventura County’s municipal stormwater system (MS4) permit to prevent stormwater from polluting and impairing Ventura County’s waterways.

2) Enforcing and enabling the implementation of the Ventura County MS4 Permit.

3) Promoting LID.

4) Preventing industrial stormwater discharges and stormwater runoff from construction sites from impairing waterbodies.

The implementation of Low Impact Development (LID) techniques across the United States has demonstrated that the proper implementation of LID techniques not only results in water quality protection benefits and in a reduction in the cost of land development and construction, but also bears other positive attributes that go beyond economic benefits such as enhanced property values, improved habitat, aesthetic amenities, and improved quality of life (Ventura County MS4 Permit Findings B17 (May 2009); Reducing Stormwater Costs through Low Impact Development (LID) Strategies and Practices, USEPA Doc No. EPA 841-F-07-2006, December 2007). Additionally, properly implemented LID techniques reduce the volume of runoff leaving a newly developed or re-developed area thereby lowering the peak runoff rate, and thus minimizing the adverse affects of hydromodification on stream habitat (Ventura County MS4 Permit Findings B17).

VCK advocates for all new developments and re-developments to adopt the LID provisions and standards set forth in the May 2009 Ventura County MS4 Permit (“MS4 Permit”). These provisions require the design storm volume (the 85th percentile storm; the 0.75 inch storm event; or 80% of the total annual runoff volume) to be retained onsite via evapotranspiration, infiltration, or harvest and re-use through limiting the effective impervious area (EIA) of the site to 5% of a site’s area. Impervious surfaces are considered ineffective or effective pervious areas if BMPs are implemented that do not allow a discharge to the MS4.

For sites where retaining the storm design volume is determined to be infeasible, alternative compliance via offsite same sub-watershed mitigation is allowed that achieves the stormwater volume and pollutant treatment that would have been achieved under the Permit’s onsite LID requirements. However, all new development or re-development sites must at least achieve an EIA of 30% or less.

Click here for VCK’s Ormond Beach Specific Plan LID Advocacy

VCK helped advocate for the New Ventura County MS4* Permit adopted in May 2009 by the RWQCB. Important to the protection of Ventura County’s inland and coastal waterbodies, the New MS4 Permit provides additional necessary protections for the ecological integrity and water quality of Ventura County’s inland and coastal waterbodies by 1.) Setting forth Low Impact Development (“LID”) Provisions for new development and re-development that are adequately protective of water quality; 2.) Incorporating TMDLs, thus allowing TMDL pollution limits for stormwater runoff to be enforceable against the municipalities and the county; and by 3.) Setting forth performance criteria for best management practices (BMPs) to help ensure that BMPs adequately treat stormwater runoff.

Importantly, VCK’s Watershed Monitoring Program is playing an important role in enabling the enforcement and implementation of the receiving water limitations provision of the MS4 permit, which is the permit tool used to improve the water quality of stormwater discharged from existing stormwater infrastructure. (Click here for more details)

*An MS4 is a system of conveyances that include catch basins, curbs, gutters, ditches, man-made channels, pipes, tunnels, or storm drains that discharges into waters of the United States. An MS4 moves water away from an area into a local water body, such a river, stream, lake, estuary, wetlands, lagoon, or marine waters.

During every rainfall event, millions of gallons of polluted rainwater originating from Ventura County industrial operations, including from scrap metal yards, pours into storm drains and ends up in the Santa Clara River, the Ventura River, Calleguas Creek, Mugu Lagoon, the Santa Clara and Ventura River Estuaries, and Pacific Ocean. The consensus among water quality experts and government agencies is that storm water pollution accounts for more than half of the total pollution entering marine and inland waterbodies annually. The pollutants associated with activities commonly conducted at scrap metal recycling facilities include, but are not limited to: toxic metals such as zinc, copper, lead, cadmium, and chromium; paint pigments and hydraulic fluids (stationary scrap processing facilities); gas, diesel, oil, and lubricants (fueling stations); oils and grease, lubricants, PCBs, hydraulic fluids, and heavy metals (hydraulic equipment and systems operations); and fuel and fuel additives, brake fluids, transmission fluids, chlorinated solvents, and arsenic (vehicle maintenance operations).

The pollutants discharged from industrial sites during storm events pose acute and chronic toxicity threats to the marine and freshwater organisms they encounter, devastating aquatic habitats and their wildlife, and impairing the recovery of endangered species such as the Southern California Steelhead.

Ventura Coastkeeper monitors and samples industrial stormwater discharges, and pursues Clean Water Act enforcement actions against the most egregious polluters to abate their toxic discharges into our waters.

Urban stormwater runoff from construction sites carries high levels of sediment, oil, toxins, nutrients, and other pollutants from municipal storms drains, industrial sites, and construction activities into Ventura County’s streams and coastal waters.

VCK’s campaign to prevent construction site stormwater from impairing Ventura County’s inland and coastal waterways is focused on:

1.) Utilizing VCK staff and our stream Team to monitor and sample discharges from construction sites during rain events

2.) Coordinating with the California Coastkeeper Alliance to continue a 10-year campaign to strengthen the general construction stormwater permit.

3.) When necessary, initiating legal action against egregious violators.

City of Ventura Water Reclamation Facility Litigation

On January 5, 2010, The Wishtoyo Foundation and its Ventura Coastkeeper Program filed a Notice of Intent to sue the City of Ventura to abate its illegal discharges of toxic sewage into the Santa Clara River Estuary and Ventura’s Coastal Waters. The purpose of the lawsuit is to protect public health; the Southern California Steelhead; and the ecological integrity, water quality, and cultural resources of the Santa Clara River Estuary, Santa Clara River ecosystem, and Ventura’s coastal marine waters.

The NOI alleges Ventura is routinely violating the federal Clean Water Act (“CWA”) by: 1.) Discharging up to 9 million gallons per day of inadequately treated toxic sewage from its sewage treatment plant (“WRF”) into the Santa Clara River Estuary and Pacific Ocean and 2.) Continuously spilling raw sewage from its sewer pipes into coastal and inland waterbodies.

NY Times Sewage Spill and Discharge Article