Water Pollution Orange County

The owners of an Anaheim junkyard and recycling center, accused of creating potential ground-water pollution, said Wednesday that they will file suit to stop the city's plan to close them down. George Adams Jr.

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board has fined a rubber manufacturer $10,000 for discharging talc-laden water into a flood-control channel. Officials of VIP Rubber Co. of La Habra are meeting with the water board's staff today to discuss the fine, which was levied after a July 19 inspection. During the visit, board staff observed that a washing machine with broken welds was releasing talc.

Enormous amounts of fertilizer waste are still flowing into Newport Bay despite major improvements this year, sparking increased concern about the mysterious sources of the pollution that often produces a thick, green slime of algae on the bay. The wastes, known as nitrate-nitrogen, which wash into the bay via San Diego Creek, declined by 73% this year because of new anti-pollution rules at large nurseries in Irvine.

Improper disposal of animal waste at hog, dairy and egg farms is threatening drinking-water supplies, recreational waters and health in parts of Southern California and across the nation, according to a report released Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This witches' brew of toxins . . . is polluting our air, lakes, rivers, streams, estuaries and drinking water," said Heather Hoecherl, an attorney with the council's Los Angeles office.

The city administrator said Friday that he may ask the City Council to declare a local disaster zone if work crews can't find the source of a sewage leak that has fouled the water for two months, closed beaches and caused financial losses at local businesses. City Administrator Ray Silver said he intends to monitor the progress of crews over the weekend and, if no progress is made, recommend the council take action Monday.

A large crack in the 36-year-old concrete wall that lines the west side of the Municipal Pier remains unrepaired while debate continues on whether the seawall is friend or foe to the coastal environment. City officials say the wall, or groin, is necessary to slow the loss of sand from the city's badly eroded beaches. But the Surfrider Foundation says the groin contributes to sand erosion and traps pollutants in the city's most popular surfing area.

They waded in cold, knee-deep water every day before and after school, collecting ocean samples off Orange County beaches. In a project organized by the Newport Surfrider Foundation, 90 science students from Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools performed tests for eight weeks on the bacteria content of beaches from Reef Point to the Santa Ana River jetty. On Saturday morning, they announced their results: 15 sites passed and three failed.

The highest fine that can be levied against the firm determined to be responsible for the rupture of an oil tanker off the California coast is $250,000, officials said Friday. Cmdr. Scott Porter, a Coast Guard spokesman in Long Beach, said the Environmental Protection Agency would impose the fine only if the Coast Guard's maximum penalty--$5,000--is considered inadequate, "taking into account the magnitude of the spill." "I think we have to assume that ($5,000) isn't much for a major company. .

From a wooded cove near Cook's Corner, Aliso Creek meanders more than 12 miles to the sea, snaking its way through some of the most richly developed and densely populated areas of Southern California. At one time, its route was entirely rustic and rural. But those days are gone. Orange County has changed, and so has the creek. Longtime residents talk of an era when Aliso Creek was brimming with lush vegetation and marine life, including steelhead trout and crayfish.

City workers doing routine maintenance on fire hydrants on Balboa Peninsula earlier this week flushed out an old water pipe, inadvertently sending rust-tainted water into the plumbing of some homes. Pete Antista, public utilities superintendent, said he became aware of the problem workers were creating Tuesday afternoon when a handful of residents called to complain of orange and red water emanating from their taps. "It is not pleasing at all," Antista said.

Chromium and chromium-6 have contaminated the soil and shallow ground water at a Santa Ana industrial site, but officials said the carcinogen has not been detected in the county's drinking water. Jeanne Garcia, spokeswoman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said the contaminated site is at Embee Inc., a chrome plating business, on South Hathaway Street. Garcia said that Embee is cooperating with authorities but that the source of the pollution has not been identified.

Chromium and chromium 6 have contaminated the soil and shallow ground water at a Santa Ana industrial site, but officials said the carcinogenic substances have not been detected in the county's drinking water. Jeanne Garcia, spokeswoman for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, said the contaminated site is at Embee Inc., a chrome plating business, on South Hathaway Street.

The Orange County Grand Jury on Wednesday called for improved testing of waterways contaminated by urban runoff, better public notification of health hazards and the creation of task forces to encourage protection of each regional watershed. While acknowledging that the county has worked to address urban runoff, "the consensus is that it's not necessarily solving the problem," grand jury member Ronald Burczewski said.

The Orange County Grand Jury on Wednesday called for improved testing for waterways contaminated by urban runoff, better public notification of health hazards and the creation of task forces to encourage protection of each regional watershed. Though acknowledging that the county has worked to address urban runoff, "the consensus is that it's not necessarily solving the problem," said grand jury member Ronald Burczewski.

A team of UC Irvine researchers has concluded that waterfowl and other animal droppings from a saltwater marsh and the Santa Ana River are a significant source of bacteria contaminating the ocean waters off Huntington Beach. In a report that will be published in the June 15 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, the researchers point to inherent flaws in the design of the man-made saltwater Talbert Marsh.

State water officials are recommending more than $93,000 in fines for three dairies, two developers and an electronics company for U.S. Clean Water Act violations in the Santa Ana River basin. Standard Pacific Homes is accused of allowing 260,000 gallons of sediment-laden runoff to flow from a Tustin development site in February, according to Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board Executive Officer Gerard Thibeault. He recommended a $15,280 fine.

Winds and tides worked in concert Monday to pushed bands of thick black crude oil onto Huntington and Bolsa Chica state beaches, producing the worst pollution yet from last week's 394,000-gallon spill off the Orange County coast. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of blackish goo that coated vast stretches of the state beaches north of the Huntington Beach Municipal Pier, officials rushed to deploy nearly 200 additional workers, increasing cleanup crews by a third.

Charging that their livelihoods have been jeopardized by maritime negligence, a dozen San Pedro-based gill-net fishermen Wednesday filed a $10-million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the owner and leaseholder of the tanker that spilled nearly 400,000 gallons of oil off Huntington Beach last week. The lawsuit, the third brought against the American Trading Transportation Co.

To the dismay of community leaders, neither Caltrans nor state water regulators plan any immediate fixes to faulty filter drains along the San Joaquin Hills toll road that are suspected of sending tainted runoff into the local watershed. There are 39 filters along the toll road designed to block pollutants in rain runoff from flowing into canyons and eventually to beaches.

The weed grows three inches a day and can blanket the bottom of a lagoon like some horrible shag carpet, killing crabs, lobsters and clams by stealing their sea floor and poisoning the water they live in. So far, there's only one known spot where Caulerpa taxifolia, a species of algae, is growing in Orange County: the lagoons of a Huntington Beach condominium community near the Anaheim Bay National Wildlife Refuge.