Water Agency Flexes New Muscle in Region

Not so long ago, the state agency in charge of safeguarding water quality in much of Southern California was under criminal investigation for inefficiency, fraud and conflicts of interest. Environmental groups charged that it rarely enforced anything, while the cities and industries it regulated saw it as pleasantly benign.

“It was a pretty innocuous agency,” said Ken Farfsing, city manager of Signal Hill.

But now the agency with the unwieldy name--the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board--is a force to be reckoned with. Twice in the last year and a half, cities have fought against controversial board decisions, accusing the agency of siding with environmentalists while ignoring the price of its decisions.

Last month, the board adopted a far-reaching plan to eliminate trash in the Los Angeles River watershed within 12 years. Fiercely fought by cities, the measure will cover a 500-square-mile swath of urban land and, by the agency’s estimates, cost taxpayers as much as $1.75 billion.

Clean-water advocates praise both the decision and the board’s recent rise from obscurity.

“The water board has been in a state of suspended animation for 10 years,” said David Beckman, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “And now they’re waking up.”

The board has also dramatically stepped up its enforcement against polluters. In 1997, it levied about $200,000 in fines. Two years later, fines totaled $1.4 million.

“The biggest difference between the regional board today versus five years ago is that they can spell the word ‘enforcement,’ ” said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay.

Yet the regional board may be the most powerful state agency few people have ever heard of. Despite its mandate to safeguard both ground and surface water for 10 million people in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, it does not have the name recognition of its air-protecting kin, the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

In fact, the last time the spotlight was shined on it was in 1997, a bad year for the agency. Although the criminal investigation turned up no charges, board offices were raided, the executive officer resigned and auditors chronicled a history of ineptitude.

They found that the staff did not aggressively pursue penalties against some of the area’s worst polluters and that “many employees did not produce because they were not expected to produce.”

Since then, numerous factors have come together to prompt the turnaround. There are new laws, a new governor, new management and new money. The agency’s annual budget has more than doubled since 1991 to almost $19 million, and staff size has jumped from 116 to 177 employees.

A lot of credit also is given to the board’s chairman, Hamid David Nahai, for guiding the transformation. The Iranian-born Century City attorney is praised for easily grasping the most arcane scientific and bureaucratic data and setting the nine-member board’s agenda with a strong basis on environmental law.

Nahai says the board needs to take a higher profile in fighting the region’s “untenable” water quality problem, particularly the storm water runoff that routinely pollutes Santa Monica Bay. “For this agency to be in the shadows is ridiculous,” he said.

Yet Nahai is not a poster child for environmental radicalism, despite complaints to the contrary. He’s a Republican appointed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson in 1997 and reappointed by Gov. Gray Davis. A self-described centrist, he says the board is simply doing a lot more to fulfill its mandate to enforce state and federal laws.

“Our actions, in and of themselves, are not revolutionary, not radical, not necessarily new,” he said.

As for the charge of colluding with clean-water advocates, Nahai responded: “It’s difficult to argue when a group stands up and says, ‘This is the law. Please implement it.’ ”

Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say the board has taken great strides in enforcing the laws and is leading the way for some of the other eight regional boards in California.

“I wish I was dealing with the L.A. board in all my situations,” said Alexis Strauss, the EPA’s director of the regional water programs. “I think they are fighting the hard battles for others.”

Steve Fleischli, head of Santa Monica BayKeeper, said new management at the regional board, led by Executive Officer Dennis Dickerson, has made the agency more professional. Whereas records and files were previously in disarray, Dickerson has created a usable database, Fleischli said.

“He’s not the kind of guy who leads the army into battle, but he’ll sure make sure the army is prepared,” Fleischli said.

Dickerson downplays some of the agency’s previous problems, but concedes there has been a big increase in enforcement. For instance, the board is finally cracking down on septic discharges into Malibu Lagoon that went ignored for years.

And in 1998, it slapped Thousand Oaks with a $2.3-million fine--the largest of its kind in state history--for a sewer break that dumped 86 million gallons of raw sewage into the Arroyo Conejo en route to the sea. “What’s really different now is that we’ve established an enforcement unit,” Dickerson said.

Certainly, many outside influences have pushed the board to take more action. Across the nation, environmentalists have aggressively lobbied the EPA and state agencies to enforce provisions of the federal Clean Water Act that have been neglected for decades.

In Southern California, many of the board’s changes were prompted by prodding from Heal the Bay, Santa Monica BayKeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which have often joined forces in recent years to form what they privately call the “dolphin jihad.”

The trash measure, for example, is the first of 92 pollution limits to be set in the next decade as part of a 2-year-old federal consent decree, which settled a lawsuit filed by the three groups against the EPA.

The groups have pressured the board into action on many fronts. The board and the EPA followed BayKeeper in filing a recent suit against the city of Los Angeles for not maintaining its sewer system. Also, the board stepped up overall enforcement after Heal the Bay released a study showing that the board had taken action against polluters only 14 times in six years, despite the group’s having found as many as 9,000 violations.

And last year, the Legislature allocated new money to the board after the Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the EPA to take over enforcement of storm water runoff rules because the state’s program was woefully inadequate.

“Rather than making storm water a priority in the 10 years it has been in charge, the [board] has let its storm water permit program fall to such a level that it is completely ineffective and unable to make any significant impact on the problem,” the 45-page document said.

The new money added almost 15 staff members to the board’s storm water program.

But Beckman, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, warns that the agency is still catching up to the minimal requirements of the Clean Water Act. The 92 pollution limits, for example, were supposed to have been set 20 years ago.

“Nobody should think that, because the regional board is more active, that they have an adequate response to the region’s most serious water problem, which is storm runoff,” he said. “It’s only against a backdrop of inaction that their current situation is noteworthy.”

Cities and industry disagree, saying the board is passing extreme measures to limit pollution that cannot be achieved. Last year, the board took its first hotly disputed stance by passing standards that required new building projects across Ventura and Los Angeles counties to limit urban runoff.

The building industry and almost all of Los Angeles County’s 88 cities argued that it would cause an economic hardship and was a “shot in the dark with no chance of improving water quality.”

About 30 mostly inland cities formed the Coalition for Practical Regulation to fight it. The issue was appealed to the state board, which largely upheld the measure.

Desi Alvarez, director of Public Works for Downey and part of the coalition, says the board no longer listens to the concerns of government or business and is not representative of the region. Most board members live on the Westside and none lives in Ventura County.

“Standing in front of them, it’s like, ‘Hurry up,’ ” Alvarez said. “They let you have your say. But they’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

Alvarez joined the coalition again in January in fighting the proposed trash limit. The cities, including Los Angeles, argued that it was not fair to hold them responsible for the slightest bit of trash that flows into the Los Angeles River. The board passed the limit unanimously, and the coalition plans to appeal again.

“I think the cities are very angry,” Alvarez said.

Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works take a more moderate stance. They have praised the board’s general transformation.

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Water Quality Control Board

The nine members of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board are appointed for four-year terms by the governor. They oversee a 4,000-square-mile area, covering 10 million people in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Here is a snapshot of the board members (there is one vacancy) and executive officer:

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CHAIRMAN

Hamid David Nahai, an attorney in private practice in Century City. Appointed in March 1997.

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VICE CHAIRMAN

Francine Diamond, the principal partner in a media consulting firm, considered the most environmentally minded board member. Appointed in April 1999.

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BOARD MEMBERS

* Susan M. Cloke, owner of a land use and design company and commissioner on the Marina del Rey Design Control Board. Appointed November 1999.

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* Larry Kosmont, president and founder of a real estate consulting firm and a former board member of the Metropolitan Water District. Appointed in January 2001.

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* Robert L. Miller, a licensed general contractor and a member of the Stanford Institute of Qualitative Social Sciences. Appointed in December 1999.

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* Bradley H. Mindlin, president of a real estate company that specializes in commercial properties. Appointed in November 2000.

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* Christopher C. Pak, CEO and president of an architectural firm and of Asia America Online. Member of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners. Appointed in November 2000.

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* Timothy J. Shaheen, CEO of Sun World International Inc. Appointed in December 1999.

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EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Dennis Dickerson, appointed in June 1997. Previously served as the California Air Resources Board’s deputy ombudsman for Southern California. He had also been an ombudsman and regional administrator with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.