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By Chris Ingraham
This spring, Bay Area shorelines and waterways are home to a most diverse range of wildlife. The Black-Bellied Plover, the Hooded Merganser, the American Avocet. They’re beautiful, if you can spot them. But maybe you’ve seen some more common species: the Long-Neck Bottle, the Double-Handled Plastic Bag, the Styrofoam Cooler, the Stinky Diaper? Spring may be in the air, but trash is in the water.
In February, a meeting of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board determined that 26 “trash-impaired” areas of San Francisco Bay are in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. Some areas included in the Water Board’s recommendation are the Petaluma River, Santa Clara County’s Guadalupe River, Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek, Colma Creek in San Mateo County, and a score of others. Only Oakland’s Lake Merritt had ever been designated accordingly before.
Under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, states are individually responsible to report instances in which, for certain bodies of water, the state’s current legal limitations “are not stringent enough to implement any water quality standard applicable to such waters.” In this case, the Water Board recommended action to enforce a reduction of human refuse in area waterways, with the hope of significantly reducing the amount of trash flowing into San Francisco Bay.
The Water Board’s Naomi Feger believes this first step is an important one. “Before you can solve a problem,” she said, “you have to acknowledge you have one.” Feger points out that the Water Board adopted municipal regional permits with trash provisions on the same day it approved its new 303(d) list. The Water Board is also putting together a statewide framework for addressing trash. Once all California regional water boards have finished their integrated reports and 303(d) lists, these reports will go before the State Water Resources Control Board. This should happen in the next several months. Then, probably by the end of this year, the State Board’s compiled report will go to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval. If approved by the EPA, the region will soon be required to regulate trash-flow into the specified waterways more vigilantly, or face the threat of heavy fines.
Water pollution is no new problem to the region. The Monitor has reported more than once on the many “invisible” contaminants — mercury, DDT, etc. — that endanger the Bay. Sometimes such contaminants are visible to the untrained eye (and sometimes to the unwelcoming nose), but to understand and remove them can require a Ph.D. Trash is different. We cause it; we see it. And we can stop it.
Yet, for years cities in the nine-county area have neglected the macroscopic pollutants everyone can see. The Water Board’s recent action marks the first comprehensive and direct address of the serious trash problem affecting our waterways and their wildlife. Other California regional water boards — Los Angeles, San Diego — have acted more decisively and quickly to staunch trash pollution in their region. The Water Board here now hopes it’s not too late.
Last year, volunteers for Save the Bay, an Oakland-based organization devoted to restoring a healthy, vibrant Bay, cleaned tens of thousands of pounds of trash from area shorelines. Just on the statewide Coastal Cleanup Day alone, volunteers collected 125 tons of trash from the area. David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, calls the trash problem “pervasive.” But many cities and counties in the Bay Area still actively oppose trash restrictions. Lewis warns: “Unless [cities] begin to enact serious prevention measures now, the quality of life and economy in the Bay Area will suffer.” What’s more, the problem is so severe that aggressive shoreline cleanups will not suffice to solve it. So what can be done?
The Water Board’s forthcoming Municipal Regional Storm Water Permit (MRP) hopes to incorporate measurable, enforceable actions to reduce trash pollution. During its five-year lifespan, the permit would regulate the amount of trash that cities and counties can emit into the Bay. The Water Board will meet again on May 13 to discuss the latest revisions to the MRP, which would cover Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties, along with Fairfield-Suisun and Vallejo. Together, these areas account for thousands of storm drains and some 75 percent of the Bay Area’s population.
Presently, the City of San Francisco uses a widespread network of storm drains to capture trash before it enters the Bay. This system seems to be working. Storm water systems throughout the East Bay, however, are in disrepair and designed for obsolete needs. During big rains, for instance, it’s common for sewage overflows to spill into the wastewater system and overwhelm them. Trash accumulates, and eventually this trash reaches the Bay. Unfortunately, the short-term cost of overhauling wastewater infrastructure is even greater than the expense of mitigating its periodical problems.
But inclusion on the Clean Water Act’s 303(d) list provides some hope. If officially listed by the EPA, regional municipalities would be eligible for increased funding assistance through a range of federal and state programs. The recently approved national stimulus package could also bring some $50 million to help offset the cost of improving the underground wastewater system’s efficiency at capturing trash.
Still, the creative models of other cities throughout the state and country may provide the best examples of other possible approaches to help reduce the trash. Awareness may be the first step, with an eye to change policy such that more attention is given to addressing the trash problem. Los Angeles has adopted a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for trash in the L.A. River Watershed, effectively requiring that nearby cities, Los Angeles County, and Caltrans stop trash from surpassing storm drains and entering waterways or beaches. The result has been increased vigilance and a sudden implementation of superior “full capture systems” to stop trash where it belongs.
Other policies range from local bond measures to state resource bonds. For instance, Oakland’s Measure DD, from 2002, and Los Angeles’s Prop O, from 2004, have dedicated millions of dollars to clean pollution, including trash, from their respective city’s watercourses and coasts. Statewide, efforts are being made to designate a portion of funds from California State Proposition 1E exclusively for trash reduction. The Ocean Protection Council has also put forward ordinances to address the trash problem along the coast.
Some state propositions are less helpful. Proposition 218, known as the “right to vote on taxes” initiative, has severely limited the fees associated with garbage collection and cleanup, attenuating the government’s resources for trash abatement. Following the lead of Santa Cruz, Bay Area cities might circumvent Proposition 218’s obstacles by creating special districts to legally assess the fees of storm water treatment. Charging fees for excess trash, banning plastic bags, and taking other creative initiatives on a state level might discourage excess waste. If revenue from such statewide initiatives could then return to local entities to help address the trash issues regionally, a sustainable framework might be in place to solve the problem for the long run.
Although a trash-free Bay is still a long time away, the Water Board’s recommendation is a significant first step. In any case, it gives a different meaning to “spring cleaning.”