Meaning of discharge legislation disputed

Alex Coolman

Depending on who you ask, it was either an appalling attempt to make

an end run around environmental legislation or an earnest effort to

understand a complex and ambiguous set of state laws.

Last week, the Irvine Co. argued to the Santa Ana Regional Water

Quality Control Board that discharges of runoff water from a 635-home

development into the ocean at Crystal Cove State Park are not legally

prohibited.

Sat Tamaribuchi, Irvine Co. vice president of environmental affairs,

said the company stands by its interpretation of state law and how storm

water can be diverted. The law requires the company to treat runoff to

what the company interprets as an “extent practicable,” Tamaribuchi said.

But environmentalists argue that both the law on this subject and

evidence of the developer’s misconduct are clear.

“Their persistence in seeking any legal technicality they can find to

get out of this is appalling,” said Susan Jordan, a board member of the

League for Coastal Protection. “In fact, what we’re really finding here

is that they seem to be woefully lacking in corporate responsibility when

it comes to their discharges on a state park beach.”

Activists who monitor discharge activity at Crystal Cove have been

disturbed for months about what they say is a virtually constant flow of

runoff water from the Irvine Co. development into the ocean. They have

long worked on the assumption that any discharge of runoff into the ocean

is a violation of state law because the area is designated an “area of

special biological significance.”

There are 34 such areas along the California coast, all governed by

the state’s 1997 Ocean Plan, which prohibits the discharge of “waste”

into their waters.

But the Irvine Co. on Thursday argued that there is a conflict between

the 1997 plan and a 1999 document that only suggests the waste be treated

“to the extent practicable” before being discharged.

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board has referred the

issue to the state level.

Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer for the board, said he

believes the Irvine Co.’s interpretation of the rules is probably not

correct.

“Our position [that discharges are prohibited] is unchanged,”

Berchtold said. “We just want to get some additional backup for our case

before we proceed.”

Robert Languell, an environmental specialist with the ocean standards

unit of the State Water Resources Control Board, said the board does not

yet have a response to the Irvine Co.’s argument.

Languell noted, however, that the document the developer cites in

support of its case is not the one that the state board looks to in

determining acceptable discharge levels.

“The way the plan reads, it’s ‘no discharges,’ and it doesn’t

distinguish between types,” he said.

The state board also contends that runoff is not allowed to enter

other “areas of special biological significance” around the state, a

claim that Tamaribuchi disputes.

The regional water quality control board has not had any qualms in the

past about deciding that discharges into Crystal Cove were illegal.

Three times this year, the regional board has fined companies for

allowing water to run into the area. In one case, the board slapped a

fine of nearly $150,000 on the Pelican Hill Golf Club for repeatedly

dumping water into the ocean.

Berchtold said the regional board had not consulted state-level

officials before imposing that fine. But he argued that there were

important distinctions between that case and the Irvine Co.’s situation.

“Those [earlier] discharges had gone on for months and months and were

not reported,” he said. “The action we took against them was not based on

a violation of the Ocean Plan, it was based on a failure to get a permit

[to dump water] and the failure to report those discharges.”