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Cities Along LA River Receive $5M To Clean Up by Ryan ZumMallen | Archive | 11.16.09 |
+  Altering the breakwater won’t do it. Eliminating plastic bags won’t do it. Slapping lawsuits on the Los Angeles cities that dump pollutants into the Los Angeles River won’t do it. For years, Long Beach residents have asked for a way to clean dreadful water quality along the shoreline. Last week, a major step was taken to make their dreams come true. A $5 million plan was approved to outfit 16 cities along the Los Angeles River with catch basins, which prevent trash and debris from entering the river and riding the water highway straight to the shores of Long Beach. The move will prevent an estimated 400 tons of trash and debris from entering the river each year. More than 12,000 basins will be inserted at stormdrains throughout cities that empty into the river, and the full year of construction – funded by federal Stimulus monies – will create 200 temporary jobs when it begins in a few weeks. Another $4 million will be available to those cities to install curb-level screens that prevent trash and debris from entering the stormdrain system at all. The City of Long Beach has extensively used catch basins, curb screens and nearly 2,000 smart sponges that absorb pollutants for more than a year.  An LBPOST.com article published in July highlighted the City’s efforts to clean its stormdrains and eliminate pollution being sent into the river and ocean.Last Thursday’s decision to approve the funding by the Los Angeles Gateway Authority marks the first step to help other cities clean up their contributions to the Los Angeles River. "For many years, our beaches and coastal water quality have suffered," said Mayor Bob Foster, in a press release. “This project will help reduce the amount of trash that ends up on the Long Beach shoreline. I look forward to the swift implementation of this project.” The cities that will receive the catch basin inserts are: Bell, Bell Gardens, Commerce, Compton, Cudahy, Downey, Huntington Park, Long Beach, Lynwood, Maywood, Montebello, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Signal Hill, South Gate and Vernon. Photo courtesy City of Long Beach
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John M. Fentis It's going to take a lot more than a measely $5 million to clean up the Los Angeles River. Who is responsible for cleaning up the catch basins? Don't get me wrong....5 million is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but, in reality, you are putting a band-aid on a cut that is rapidly approaching the size of the Grand Canyon. What needs to be done is an investigation which would determine the source points of ingress into the Los Angeles River. People dump into it all the time. In order to do catch the violators you must be willing to commit the resources necessary to expose them. That requires a commitment to environmental enforcement by the Water Board who, frankly, has ceased bringing any quality cases to prosecutors within Los Angeles County for many years now. This is another prime example of the lack of any meaningful environmental enforcement program in the County. Everything by the agencies is virtually done on an administrative basis which means that the agencies keep the money and none of it gets back to the communities where it can be used to really address the problem. We are still a long way from banning the use of one-time disposable plastics, and the American Chemistry Council fights those proposed efforts tooth and nail, preferring instead to blame the consumer for disposing of trash in an irresponsible manner. While the consumer is not totally free from blame, he/she is not totally at fault. Packaging is an issue that is the responsibility of everyone, business included. You can pass all the laws you want, but, for laws to be meaningful, one needs an enforcement game plan and that is where our elected prosecutors come up short. Corporate interests view all of the administrative enforcement efforts of the Water Board as the "cost of doing business" and until you can get back to the business of providing an enforcement program containing some teeth, $5 million dollar band aids simply will not get the job done CHARLIE You got that right, John Fentis, BUT, at least it's a start; And we're counting on Citizens like you to keep adding fuel to the fire - especially at election time! And when I see what's happening in DC, I'm going out of my gourde until Midterms... Laurel at www.onepieceata Hurray! 400 tons of trash each year that will not make it to the ocean! Woo-Hoo! Each small step helps and contributes to the big picture! For more small steps, check out www.onepieceatatime.net.
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Ryan ZumMallen has served as the managing editor of the LBPOST.com since 2007. He graduated from CSULB with a degree in Print Journalism in 2008 and is a member of the 2009 class of Leadership Long Beach. You can find him on various basketball courts around the city.
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