Group Calls for Vigilance Against Bay Polluters : Environment: The Environmental Health Coalition’s 10-point plan seeks to make San Diego Bay more suitable for swimming, fishing and bathing.

A group of environmental activists waging a campaign to clean San Diego Bay released a 10-point strategy plan Friday that would hold polluters in check, including a call for environmental protection agencies to be more vigilant.

“Blueprint for a Clean Bay,” by the Environmental Health Coalition, is the first step toward a comprehensive management program that would make the bay more suitable for swimming and fishing, the coalition said.

After decades of sewer runoff into the bay, and waste-dumping from boats and waterfront industry, the concentration of pollutants has created several “toxic hot spots,” coalition officials said.

Some of the concentrations--pesticides and toxins, such as DDT, PCBs and TBT; and heavy metals such as copper, lead and mercury--are among the worst on the West Coast, said Jay Powell, co-chairman of the Clean Bay Campaign, which the coalition began in 1987.

“How bad is the bay?” Powell said Friday. “There are signs posted in some areas saying you have to curtail the intake of fish caught in the bay. . . . There are fences preventing people from going swimming because it may be hazardous to their health. That’s unacceptable.”

Although the report implores all San Diego citizens to be conscious of the deteriorating health of the bay, it places much of the policing responsibility on two of the 22 agencies connected with the bay--the California Regional Water Quality Control Board and the San Diego Unified Port District.

The state board, though strapped by dwindling funds, needs to “make chronic violators accountable,” the strategy plan said. According to the coalition, 98% of the groups holding pollutant discharge permits and found to be in violation of restrictions were not fined in 1990, nor were their permits revoked.

The report also calls for mandatory fines and permit revocation when there are violations of the Federal Clean Water Act. Chronic violators who lease space from the Port District should be denied renewals, the coalition said.

“The problems will continue until the permits are enforced,” said Laura Hunter, director of the Clean Bay Campaign. “For those polluting the bay for profit, there is no incentive to stop.”

David Barker, a senior engineer at the Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Diego, said there are 376 facilities with discharge permits in the state, and about 2 dozen of those are around San Diego Bay. Funding for 1 1/2 full-time staffers is set aside to police the discharge along the water. Each of the facilities is inspected an average of once to three times a year, he said.

“What you end up with is not enough staff to address all violations at the same time,” Barker said. “We have to prioritize and pick off the problems that are most threatening to water quality. We don’t believe it is a situation that is out of control.”

Barker said the board took action in December to penalize eight bay-side companies not in compliance with discharge permits.

“We are making headway on the worst problems on the bay,” Barker said. “There may be people who don’t think we are making progress fast enough, but given some of the actions taken recently for the violations, I don’t think anyone can accuse the board of not being aggressive.” Violators included an aerospace contractor, shippers, and several boatyards.

Economics comes into play when the board decides on penalties and waste removal levels, Barker said. Extensive cleaning and waste-hauling expenses can cost companies millions, he said.

“In these sediment and water-contamination problems, the question always comes up, ‘How clean is clean?’ ” he said.

“Cleaning everything up to level zero might sound good environmentally, but the responsible party may not be financially capable. The board recognizes that we don’t want to drive all the business along the bay into bankruptcy, so we have to reach a median point.”

The report’s strategy also calls for the county and the Port District to pay for monitoring and periodic testing of the bay’s water and sediment quality.

To aid monitoring efforts, the agencies should establish a standard to assess the bay’s health. The coalition suggested that the water and sediment concentrations found in Washington’s Puget Sound be used as standards.

Dan Wilkens, spokesman for the Port District, said Friday that the Port District had not reviewed the report and had no comment.

The report notes that the military, particularly the Navy, is the biggest user of the bay, controlling one-fifth of the waterfront. The coalition called on the Navy to reduce by half its discharge of toxins by 1995, and to zero by 2000.

The coalition also recommended that all Navy bases and commands set aside at least 1% of all funding from industrial and maintenance activity to develop technology to reduce the use of hazardous materials.

In addition, the strategy calls on Gov. Pete Wilson to nominate the bay to the National Estuary Program. If accepted, the national significance of the bay would be recognized and federal funding would become available to support an environmental-management program.