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Federal
USEPA's
BEACH Program
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) recently provided $10 million
in grant funds to states to help establish national water quality monitoring
and public notification standards. Ideally, these standards are designed to ensure
that beach water quality monitoring and public notification programs adequately
protect public health regardless of the location of the beach. However, two key
documents that relate to the BEACH program - (the National Beach Guidance and
Performance Criteria for Recreational Waters, and the Ambient Water Quality
Criteria for Bacteria) - have shortcomings that do not address the original legislative
intent, which was-to standardize monitoring and reporting programs and thereby
better protect beachgoer health. Details are discussed below in the Updates,
Accomplishments, and Future Recommendations section of this document.
State
Proposition
40 (Clean Beaches Initiative II)
Proposition 40 - the Water and Parks bond, passed in
the spring of 2002, is being used to fund $46 million
in new Clean Beach Initiative projects. That means that
California's beaches will have received a total of $78.5
million in two years to help clean up problem beaches
and poor water quality. As a member of the Clean Beach
Advisory Group, Heal the Bay continues to be integrally
involved in prioritizing, recommending modifications,
and approving these projects. In addition, California
now has set aside $375 million for watershed protection
and clean beaches, rivers and streams. Proposition 40
continues the important work initiated by Propositions
12 and 13, to further clean up California's most polluted
beaches, rivers, and creeks.
Proposition
50
Proposition 50 - the Clean Drinking Water, Coastal and
Beach Protection Act passed in the fall of 2002, is
moving California forward in the effort to restore critical
coastal wetlands, fund programs to protect watersheds
and sources of drinking water, and enabling important
stretches of land (namely critical habitat) to be purchased.
Over $100 million (a minimum of $20 million for the
Santa Monica Bay Restoration Plan) is available for
the restoration and protection of water quality in coastal,
estuaries, bays and near-shore waters. In addition,
there is $200 million ($40 million for the Santa Monica
Bay and Ventura County coastal watersheds; and the San
Gabriel and lower Los Angeles River watersheds) available
for coastal watershed protection.
Pending
State Legislation
ACA 10
ACA 10, authored by Assembly Member Tom Harman, would
allow local governments more flexibility to reduce storm
water and urban runoff pollution. Currently, the state
constitution requires a simple majority of council vote
by municipalities to increase water, sewer and refuse
fees. ACA 10 would add storm water and urban runoff,
which are the source of most water pollution, to this
short list of exemptions. ACA 10 would give localities
the flexibility to adjust fees and direct resources
towards protecting the environment and human health.
AB
740
State Assembly Member Fran Pavley introduced
AB 740, also known as the Clean Air, Clean Water, and
Coastal Protection Act of 2004. This bill would authorize
$2.9 billion in bond funds, to finance an air and water
quality and coastal protection program. The coastal
programs funded by the bonds will help to protect and
restore coastal fisheries, protect coastal and marine
wildlife and habitats, and will fund improvements of
existing sewer collection and treatment systems. AB
740 is important because these under-prioritized issues
cannot be fully addressed by the limited funding provided
by Propositions 40 and 50.
AB
907
Although the State has a long legislative history of
encouraging environmental education, and although state
regulatory agencies have invested in educational programs,
the educational community has not actually included
environmental education in content standards. To close
this critical gap in education, Heal the Bay is sponsoring
AB 907 with Assembly Member Fran Pavley. AB 907 will
incorporate environmental education into the science
and history/social science education content standards
of grades K-12, thereby promoting stewardship and helping
each student make informed decisions about their individual
impact on the environment.
AB
400
Introduced by Assembly Member Tom Harman, AB 400 will
weaken the bacteria standards for marine beaches that
were established by AB 411-the beach monitoring law
that requires weekly testing of the state's beach water
quality. Since 1999, the county environmental health
departments have monitored all beaches with more than
50,000 annual visitors or with storm drains that flow
throughout the summer. Closures or advisories are issued
for beaches that fail to meet the state's standards
for total coliform, fecal coliform or enterococcus bacteria,
but AB 400 seeks to weaken those standards. There are
no new research results that indicate the state should
weaken the existing standards or the monitoring requirements
in AB 411.
SB
214
Authored by Senator Bill Morrow, SB 214 would change
the current state requirements from a numeric (water
quality based criteria) to a maximum extent practicable
("MEP") standard. This MEP standard would undermine
the required efforts to develop Total Maximum Daily
Loads (TMDLs)- a program that establishes numeric effluent
limits based on water quality objectives in order to
restore impaired beneficial uses (swimming, fishing,
drinking, etc.). Numeric effluent limits for point sources
are the primary reason for water quality improvements
locally and nationally.
AB
1517
This bill was Assembly Member George Plescia's attempt
to rewrite the Clean Water Act. After heavy amending,
this bill is simply an anti-environmental bill that
aims to prevent the State Water Quality Control Board
and Regional Water Quality Control Boards from prohibiting
municipal discharges of stormwater and urban runoff
to public waterbodies.
SB
803
Under existing law, the State Water Resources Control
Board and the California Regional Water Quality Control
Boards set waste discharge requirements for the discharge
of storm water in accordance with what is called the
Federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES) permit program. This bill would declare the
Legislature's intent (in subsequent amendments) to establish
a different means of defining compliance with storm
water runoff requirements. This is another anti-Clean
Water Act bill that promotes watershed management concepts
instead of the current hard and fast environmental regulations,
including permits, TMDLs, and others.
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