Paul Clinton
NEWPORT BEACH -- The State Water Resources Control Board may add as
many as six creeks in the city to a federal list of impaired water bodies
as early as next month, officials said Friday.
But homeowners in Newport Coast are questioning whether there is a
real need for the federal protection.
Possible additions to the list could include Buck Gully, Los Trancos,
Muddy Creek, Pelican Hill Waterfall, Pelican Point Creek and Pelican
Point Middle Creek.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a deadline of April
30 for the board to submit any new entries for inclusion on the list.
A local environmentalist, the Irvine Co. and other groups have all
found heightened bacteria levels in the creeks.
"The data were quite clear in demonstrating that an impairment exists
[in the creeks]," said Kurt Berchtold, a spokesman for the Santa Ana
Regional Water Quality Control Board.
The federal list, the Impaired Water Bodies 303d List, was created by
the Clean Water Act of 1972. It flags a polluted water body so it can be
cleaned up.
Once added to that list, state and local officials must develop
standards for how much pollution can flow in the creeks. The standards
are known as "total maximum daily loads."
In May, Orange County CoastKeeper Executive Director Garry Brown
submitted the formal request for the listing and some testing data to the
Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In that package, Brown said he included photographs of children
playing in the polluted runoff as it flowed onto the state beach and into
Crystal Cove.
"Our rationale is that basically during the summer there were always
toddlers playing in the urban runoff," Brown said. "We have pictures of
toddlers rolling in it and drinking it."
Last summer, Brown, with the cooperation of the city and other
agencies, installed a diversion pumping system to pull polluted water out
of Buck Gully. About 150,000 gallons a day flow down the gully onto
Little Corona.
Both Crystal Cove and Little Corona are on the state list of 34
protected water bodies known as Areas of Special Biological Significance.
The move to add the creeks to the federal list has been embraced by
the local water board.
In fact, board staff members added three of the creeks to Brown's
initial list of three. Several other water bodies -- including Morning
Canyon Creek, Little Corona and a section of the Back Bay -- were
considered and dropped.
Upper Newport Bay, Newport Harbor and the Santa Ana River are all on
