Azusa Persists In Efforts to Block Flushing of Morris Dam

Even after billions of gallons of water had been drained from the Morris Reservoir, Azusa officials persisted this week in trying to block the county’s experimental project to wash a thick layer of silt and boulders into the San Gabriel River canyon below.

In their most recent legal tactic, Azusa officials were rebuffed Tuesday by a federal judge who dismissed an environmental lawsuit, which sought to halt the project. On Wednesday they said they will ask Los Angeles County officials for permission to conduct toxicity tests on silt at the reservoir to prove that a real environmental threat exists.

“I know there is contamination,” Azusa Mayor Pro Tem Harry Stemrich said. He and other Azusa City Council members, who had voted last month to file the suit, have complained that fish, birds and the ground-water supply of the San Gabriel Valley are endangered by the project.

In addition, council members say they are afraid a torrent of silt will flow downstream in the San Gabriel River through their city and that when the mud dries it will become airborne and add to the alreadysmoggy air.

During the past seven weeks, the reservoir, located in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Azusa and Glendora, was drained in order to clean out silt and send huge quantities of water down into spreading grounds, which are used as distribution points for the region’s water supply.

The draining was completed last Thursday after an extensive fish rescue and relocation program designed to minimize the killing of fish at the reservoir. Because Morris has been closed to public fishing for decades, thousands of fish have led unhampered lives there, state Department of Fish and Game officials said.

More than 10,000 large fish, including record-sized bass, blue gill and crappie, along with an estimated 30,000 native, finger-sized fish, were relocated into four county-run fishing lakes throughout the San Gabriel Valley during the past three weeks, officials said.

State fish and game officials who monitored the fish rescue had said they were worried that as many as 50% of the fish in the reservoir might die when it was drained. But state and county officials this week said very few died, although they don’t know how many. Only several dozen dead fish were visible in the mud last Friday.

Now Los Angeles County Department of Public Works officials, who oversee flood control and water conservation on the river, plan to remove 57 years of accumulated silt and boulders from the reservoir bottom to increase the facility’s flood control capacity.

Under the plan, water released from the San Gabriel Reservoir upstream would force the silt from Morris and into the San Gabriel River Channel, which winds its way to the Pacific Ocean.

The drained water was released to supplement supplies during the drought. Local water officials have supported the project, which they say is helping the region’s parched underground water supplies.

They expressed no fears of contamination of the water supply from the silt.

In the initial experiment, about 1 million cubic yards of silt--only about a 15th of the quantity estimated to be there--will be washed out. If it is determined that the environmental effects are acceptable, more silt would be removed later, county officials said.

If Azusa officials want to pay for separate testing of the silt, county officials said Wednesday that they are willing to allow that, according to Paul I. Yoshinaga, deputy county counsel.

Testing for pollutants in the silt already is being undertaken by several agencies, county officials say. The county Department of Public Works is testing for heavy metals and other pollutants, partly due to a request by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. In addition, county officials said the U.S. Navy is conducting its own tests.

Initial test results show no harmful levels of contaminants in the silt, according to Donald Nichols, assistant deputy director of hydraulic/water conservation in the public works department.

Navy officials familiar with its testing efforts were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Azusa Mayor Pro Tem Stemrich said he believes the Navy, which for decades has operated a torpedo testing facility on the reservoir’s edge, polluted the facility’s muddy bottom. He said he has no firm evidence but said “the government is the worst polluter in the world.”

The pollution claim was one of several charges the city of Azusa made in the lawsuit that was rejected Tuesday by U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts in Los Angeles. Letts said the case is dominated by state issues, not federal ones. Regardless, Letts said, the case had no merit.

Although air quality issues were not raised in the lawsuit, Azusa officials are concerned that great quantities of dust will rise from the drying silt.

Mayor Eugene Moses said the council Tuesday night authorized the city administrator to work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in setting up dust monitoring devices to measure what effect the silt may have on the city’s air quality. Azusa, Moses said, already faces air pollution problems from rock quarrying operations and doesn’t need any more dust.

County officials say they have taken all necessary precautions to protect the San Gabriel River environment and the surrounding communities. But Stemrich and Moses say they are skeptical of the county’s efforts. “They have just raped the city of Azusa,” Stemrich said, referring to the Department of Public Works and Judge Letts. “I wish the judge could go out there and look at the destruction and the mess.”

Stemrich said: “Just take a look at that sludge coming out the dam. It’s absolutely disgusting.”

This week, a minimal flow of water coming from a pipe in the dam’s bottom flushing out 8,000 cubic yards of silt daily--the equivalent of 500 dump trucks, county officials say.

Local environmental groups, Stemrich said, have done nothing to assist the city in its cause.

Maxine Leichter, a Walnut resident who specializes in water quality issues for the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter, said her group shares the concerns of the Azusa council about how the project has been overseen. “It wasn’t handled well,” Leichter said. “There should have been more investigation and more public notification.”

But she said the wildlife issues regarding fish and fish-eating birds seems to have been adequately addressed. “I’m certainly not saying that I know for sure that everything is going to be OK,” she said. “I am concerned about the mud that is going to be left and what may be in that.”

Still she said, the overriding concern for the San Gabriel Valley is the need to increase the flood control capability of the reservoir.

Free-lance writer Elena Farrington contributed to this story.