Cities not together on Back Bay study

Paul Clinton

UPPER NEWPORT BAY -- As far as efforts to study and clean up the Back

Bay go, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye.

Costa Mesa has taken a far less active approach to the federally

mandated cleanup effort than its southeastern neighbor, especially in

regard to a controversial study that could set new standards for what

flows into the bay.

As an “impaired water body,” a not-so-glorious designation handed out

by the Environmental Protection Agency, the bay must be cleaned up for

swimmers by 2014.

The Costa Mesa City Council on Monday chipped in the city’s $4,428

share of a $261,000 study that could be used to rewrite standards for

four substances flowing into the bay via urban runoff -- sediment,

nutrients, pathogens and toxics.

However, the city was the last agency of nearly a dozen to ante up for

the 2-year-old study.

For the city, one of five inland cities involved in the study with

Newport Beach, the water quality of the Back Bay simply is less pressing

than public safety and road repair.

“We want to do our part, but we also want to have our police officers

on the street and fix those potholes,” Public Services Director Bill

Morris said. “It’s a balancing act.”

The reason for Costa Mesa’s less activist approach to the Back Bay

might be as straightforward as the body of water not being in Costa Mesa,

Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff suggested.

The cities’ differences go deeper. They also disagree about the

current pollution standards set for the four substances that flow into

the bay.

In a Nov. 19 staff report, Assistant City Engineer Ernesto Munoz

called the current standards “rather subjective” and wondered if their

implementation would be possible “without substantial modification of the

existing storm-water systems at indeterminable costs.”

Newport Beach leaders, on the other hand, have endorsed the current

standards while denouncing the controversial study, which is being paid

for by the Irvine Ranch Water District, the Irvine Co. and other members

of a “watershed executive committee.”

Environmentalists claim the study could lead to the standards being

rewritten in ways that would reduce the Back Bay’s water quality.

In an Oct. 12 letter to the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control

Board, Newport Beach Mayor Gary Adams called the study “fatally flawed”

and “scientifically unsound.”

But Morris said he was unwilling to agree with Newport Beach’s

condemnation of the study.

He defended the city’s stance, saying it has set aside more than

$80,000 over the next two years to study the problem.

By contrast, Newport Beach will spend $620,000 during the 2001-02

fiscal year.

Costa Mesa is also preparing to hire a consultant to review the study.

“We are not prepared at this point,” Morris said. “We need to hire

someone with expertise to give us their opinion.”

-- Paul Clinton covers the environment and John Wayne Airport. He may

be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail ato7

[email protected] .