Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek Stakeholder-Led Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)

A Comprehensive Collaboration for Water Quality Improvements and Beyond

Dave Jones, P.E., CH2M HILL Heather Boyle Van Meter, P.E., CDM

Sheila Brice, City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Sanitation Donna Chen, City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Sanitation

CH2M HILL

555 S. Flower St., #3550 Los Angeles, CA 90017

ABSTRACT In response to the 1999 Consent Decree resulting from Heal the Bay, et al. vs. United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for water bodies in the greater Los Angeles (LA) basin were required to be developed on an aggressive schedule. The first one, the Trash TMDL, was developed in the absence of a collaborative stakeholder involvement effort and was met with stiff resistance from the regulated community. An ensuing lawsuit resulted in the TMDL being remanded back to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board). To avoid similar litigation and conflict on future TMDLs, the USEPA and the Water Board prepared a TMDL strategy document inviting agencies and organizations to take on the role of a lead stakeholder, facilitating involvement and collaboration among community interests with the objective of developing TMDLs that would be coop-eratively implemented by the regulated community. The City of LA accepted the invitation and is now leading the stakeholder-led TMDL effort for the LA River and Ballona Creek. This effort is called “CREST,” which stands for Cleaner Rivers through Effective Stakeholder TMDLs. Since the initiation of CREST in 2004, the stakeholder group has collaborated on the develop-ment of three TMDLs: Ballona Creek Toxics, Ballona Creek Bacteria, and LA River Bacteria. For the Ballona Creek Toxics TMDL, CREST developed joint comments among the stakeholders emphasizing compliance and implementation schedule issues. As a result, the draft TMDL was significantly revised to reflect stakeholder concerns while still achieving the Water Board’s desired adoption time frame. For the Ballona Creek Bacteria TMDL, CREST prepared a TMDL Implementation Strategy document that focused on implementation options and monitoring strategies, including estimated costs and schedule. The document identified specific approaches and facilities for implementation emphasizing decentralized, watershed-based solutions versus large, end-of-pipe structural solutions. CREST is now in the midst of developing the LA River Bacteria TMDL with a time line of having the TMDL ready for adoption in 2007. KEYWORDS TMDL, Stakeholder, Los Angeles, LA River, Ballona Creek

2350

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

INTRODUCTION The Los Angeles (LA) River and Ballona Creek are the two primary receiving water bodies within the LA basin that drain to the Santa Monica Bay. The LA River runs 51 miles through the northern, central, and southern portions of LA and other cities. The LA River watershed is 834 square miles consisting of a broad cross section of land uses from dense urban to open-spaced forest. See Figure 1. Ballona Creek flows 10 miles, draining the western portions of the Los Angeles basin serving a watershed of 130 square miles also consisting of a broad spectrum of land uses, mostly highly urbanized but also with undeveloped, open space in the upper watershed. See Figure 2. The LA River and Ballona Creek receive the dry and wet weather runoff from an estimated 4 million people plus the discharge from three major publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). These water bodies provide multiple beneficial uses including vital flood control for protection of billions of dollars in infrastructure and vital environmental habitat for aquatic and terrestrial species. AGGRESSIVE TMDL REQUIREMENTS AND THE NEED FOR ADAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION In addition to trash, several other pollutants of concern are required to have TMDLs developed for the LA River and Ballona Creek including: nitrogen, metals, bacteria, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), tributyl tin (TBT), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other organics. The Consent Decree requires development of all of these TMDLs between 2004 and 2012. This aggressive schedule demands that TMDLs be developed before any of the desired water quality standard studies be performed. The water quality standard studies would normally confirm attainable beneficial uses and site-specific water quality objectives suitable for the attainable uses. Therefore, it is widely accepted that TMDLs be developed as mandated by the Consent Decree with the provision for ”re-openers” in the future to incorporate the results of special water quality studies. This “adaptive implementation” strategy will allow TMDLs to be developed pursuant to the Consent Decree while allowing flexibility to adapt implementation strategies in response to new data and other information pertinent to protecting beneficial uses and attaining the necessary water quality objectives. “CREST” - A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO ACHIEVE MULTIPLE COMMUNITY

BENEFITS

A stakeholder-led TMDL Steering Committee has been formed consisting of the City of LA, LA County, other cities and agencies, environmental organizations and private-sector/business interests. This stakeholder group is name CREST, which stands for Cleaner Rivers through Effective Stakeholder-led TMDLs. To embrace the stakeholder involvement approach, a broad-based public stakeholder community has been solicited to engage all interested parties that form

2351

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

Figure 1

2352

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

Figure 2

2353

WEFT

EC®.06

Copyright 2006 W

ater Environment Foundation. A

ll Rights R

eserved©

the CREST Steering Committee. In addition, the CREST Technical Committee and specific technical working groups are providing scientifically rigorous and objective work plans, study objectives and methodologies, and work products. The result of the CREST effort, facilitated by the City of LA, is achieving TMDL development and implementation strategies that will address multiple pollutants through a combination of integrated projects. These integrated projects will provide water quality improvements to comply with TMDLs and greater community benefits including green-belt restoration, community park and wetland enhancements, and institutional facility improvements. CREST PROGRESS TO DATE Ballona Creek Toxics TMDL. One of the first success stories of CREST pertained to the development of the Ballona Creek Toxics TMDL. This TMDL, which is due to be adopted in June 2006, was in the public review stage as CREST was first being formalized. Immediately, the CREST process was used as a forum to openly discuss stakeholder issues in meetings and workshops involving the regulated community, environmental groups, and regulatory agencies (including the Water Board responsible for developing and adopting the TMDL). As a result of the CREST input into the TMDL development process, the draft TMDL was significantly revised to reflect stakeholder concerns while still achieving the Water Board’s desired adoption time frame. Ballona Creek Bacteria TMDL. During the summer and fall of 2005, CREST focused on supporting the Water Board in its development of the Ballona Creek Bacteria TMDL, due to be adopted in the summer of 2006. This TMDL was already well into the development phase, so the Water Board expressed the need for CREST to assist on the implementation planning and monitoring portions of the TMDL. The CREST Technical Committee developed implemen-tation options for both dry weather and wet weather conditions that included a broad range of potential solutions including the following: • Small-scale, decentralized structural options that offer multiple community benefits

including cisterns, bioswales, porous pavement, and creek restoration • Non-structural, institutional options to decrease both bacterial concentrations in urban

runoff and decrease the total amount of runoff, including remote-controlled landscape irrigation

• Large, end-of-pipe, structural storage and treatment options The CREST Technical Committee produced a technical memorandum summarizing the evaluation of the implementation options including economic (estimated capital and operation & maintenance costs) and non-economic criteria. The technical memorandum describes alternative TMDL implementation strategies and recommends a preferred strategy for compliance that emphasizes decentralized, watershed-based solutions to maximize community benefits, minimize compliance costs while achieving water quality attainment goals. The estimated costs for implementation ranged from $375 million to over $900 million in capital costs to comply over a

2354

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

time frame of approximately 20 years. The resulting draft TMDL document being published by the Water Board incorporates key findings of the CREST technical memorandum, including the draft implementation schedule, and will include this technical memorandum as an appendix to the TMDL document to demonstrate the value of stakeholder input into the TMDL development process. CREST’S FOCUS FOR 2006 AND 2007 – LA RIVER BACTERIA TMDL While the above examples are success stories, the stakeholders see the maximum benefit from CREST in fully developing a TMDL from start to finish, and not “weighing in” mid-way during the development process. Therefore, CREST has agreed to focus its efforts on the development of the Bacteria TMDL for the LA River with the objective of completing the development work by 2007. A detailed TMDL Development Process document has been prepared to describe the develop-ment of the LA River Indicator Bacteria TMDL in terms of the steps established by the TMDL program under the USEPA and the State of California regulations and guidance. This paper takes each step and describes how this particular TMDL will be developed based on our current knowledge about the LA River. This affords the participants in this process to more fully understand, in these early stages, how the TMDL will be developed, what information and knowledge we currently have, where our knowledge gaps exist, and in general terms what we expect the final TMDL to include. To facilitate stakeholder understanding of the TMDL development process, single-page summary sheets have been prepared for each of the basic TMDL development steps as listed below. Each summary sheet presents “what we know” and lists “questions and concerns” needing to be addressed by CREST. Step 1 - Problem Identification – discussing the listed reaches of the LA River, beneficial uses, and preliminary bacteria pollutant sources. Step 2 – Numeric Targets – discussing water quality objectives including consideration of a reference watershed approach and water quality modeling approaches to determine how best to achieve water quality objectives. Step 3 – Source Analysis – discussing both dry weather and wet weather preliminary source assessment of bacteria pollution. Preliminary data analysis suggests that loading of bacterial indicators to the LA River is from distributed sources that feed the waterbodies through storm drains. Actual sources of bacteria are as yet unproven and may include distributed land use based sources, broken sewer lines, bacteria growth in drains, and others. Step 4 – Linkage Analysis – discussing linking pollutant sources to water quality exceedances in the river including modeling approaches. For the Ballona Creek Bacteria TMDL, rigorous linkage analyses were not needed because the TMDL was concentration- or density-based rather than load based, and the assimilative capacity was defined as the water quality objective.

2355

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

Step 5 – Pollutant Allocation – discussing ways to allocate point and non-point pollutant loads among the various sources. The primary allocation for LA River bacteria TMDL will be to the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits as a point source. These allocations will be based on either the number of exceedance days (reference watershed approach) or load capacity (modeling approach). Step 6 – Implementation Strategy – discussing alternative approaches to achieve compliance with the TMDL among the various municipalities and other responsible parties in the regulated community. The strategy lays out estimated costs and schedule for implementation actions. Step 7 – Monitoring – discussing existing and recommended water quality monitoring to evaluate compliance and to assist in implementation including special studies to support an adaptive implementation approach. These steps have been laid out in an overall LA River Bacteria TMDL Development Flowchart to graphically display each step including inter-relationships and key decision points. See Figure 3. WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROGRAM CREST has commissioned a Technical Working Group to conduct a field water quality monitoring program to gather much-needed data on flow and water quality in the LA River and its tributaries. The primary purpose of the field monitoring work is to help identify sources of bacteria pollution during dry weather conditions. Funding for this field monitoring program is being provided by a $150,000 grant from USEPA. The initial field monitoring work was conducted in May 2006. As new flow and water quality data are generated and undergo quality assurance and quality control checks, they will be incorporated into the LA River Bacteria TMDL development process and a draft TMDL document will be produced using more valuable data. The draft is expected to be available by fall 2006. OBTAINING THE ENDORSEMENT OF ELECTED/APPOINTED OFFICIALS Stakeholder participants at the CREST Steering and Technical Committee meetings are primarily management- and staff-level employees of the respective municipal agencies and non-governmental organizations. However, to be ultimately successful, the CREST program needs to be understood and endorsed by elected and appointed officials within the watershed. It is widely accepted that compliance with TMDLs in the LA basin will take significant dollars and that these significant expenditures will need the approval of elected and appointed officials.

2356

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©

Figure 3

2357

WEFT

EC®.06

Copyright 2006 W

ater Environment Foundation. A

ll Rights R

eserved©

2358

WEFT

EC®.06

Copyright 2006 W

ater Environment Foundation. A

ll Rights R

eserved©

2359

WEFT

EC®.06

Copyright 2006 W

ater Environment Foundation. A

ll Rights R

eserved©

To engage elected and appointed officials, CREST sponsored an “Executive Briefing” that took place in May 2006. The briefing was “chaired” by USEPA, Water Board, and the City of LA. Each made presentations explaining the benefits of CREST participation. These benefits are as follows: • Collaborating to devise alternative methods to allocate pollutant loads among the various

sources in the watershed in the most economical and optimum ways • Developing watershed-based implementation strategies that focus on priority sources of

pollution to achieve water quality benefits faster at reduced cost. • Identifying priority locations along the LA River and Ballona Creek for protection of

beneficial uses. • Participating jointly in water quality monitoring programs to better understand sources of

pollutants, reducing uncertainty and resulting in fairer pollutant load allocations. The first Executive Briefing was attended by more than 18 officials representing 12 cities and other municipal agencies throughout the LA River watershed. Keen interest was expressed by the various cities in participating in joint water quality monitoring efforts in the LA River watershed by either contributing monetary or in-kind services. Another briefing is planned for the fall of 2006 to keep the elected and appointed officials informed of CREST progress and engaged in the stakeholder process. CREST’S SUCCESS BEYOND LA RIVER BACTERIA TMDL The successful development of the LA River Bacteria TMDL will be the primary test to demonstrate the value of the seven-step stakeholder-led TMDL development process.. However, the CREST stakeholders have expressed a desire to expand the scope beyond the LA River Bacteria TMDL development process into conducting special studies that are identified in the various TMDLs for the LA River and Ballona Creek including metals, toxics, bacteria, and others. All stakeholders agree on the need to develop more data to support scientifically based TMDLs in an adaptive management framework. Most of the CREST stakeholders want to be part of the process for planning and executing special studies to be sure that their interests are being met and CREST provides a valuable venue for this to occur.

2360

WEFTEC®.06

Copyright 2006 Water Environment Foundation. All Rights Reserved©