Hermosa Beach will try to convince neighboring cities to address a larger share of stormwater runoff in order to avoid building a large and controversial project at sites on public land in the south end of the city.
The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to seek an amendment or, potentially dissolution and redrafting, of the current agreement among cities in the Beach Cities Enhanced Watershed Management Plan. That agreement calls for the construction of a stormwater infiltration project beneath the Greenbelt between Herondo and Second streets, a project intended to address regional ocean water quality goals but which has prompted impassioned objections from the hundreds of residents living nearby.
Mayor Stacey Armato and Councilmember Hany Fangary, the members of a council subcommittee formed last October to examine possible alternatives to the Greenbelt, said they spent a portion of last weekend touring the Greenbelt and South Park, which had been suggested as an alternative, and meeting with dozens of residents. Addressing a packed council chamber and recognizing the emotions that the issue has produced, the two took the unusual step of announcing their recommendation of “Option Three” — not to proceed with either the Greenbelt or South Park, and instead to lobby Redondo Beach and possibly Torrance to create alternative projects there — before public comment on the issue began.
The announcement embodied a remarkable turnaround for the city on the issue. Residents had consistently complained about what they characterized as a shadowy public process regarding the infiltration project, and went so far as to question whether the selection of the Greenbelt location was based on the fact that none of the council members live near it. While council members stridently rejected this accusation and pointed to lengthy technical studies to show how the Greenbelt location was chosen, the subcommittee’s recent efforts offered a human component for a process awash in scientific and legal recondity.
“The recommendation we made was based specifically on going out to properties, standing on the front doors of properties on the Greenbelt, and going to South Park, spending hours at South Park over the weekend,” Fangary said. The audience, warned in advance against disruptive responses to speakers comments, made one of its few audible demonstrations in response to the recommendation, clapping loudly.
The vote offers a reprieve for residents who live near the Greenbelt, as well as those who live near or use South Park. But Tuesday’s decision also exposes the city to considerable uncertainty. It threatens previously obtained grant funds while demanding new design costs; requires affirmative votes from elected officials in other regions who have doubtless become aware of the issue’s political sensitivity; and exposes the city to hefty fines and legal costs that could reach millions of dollars.
City Attorney Michael Jenkins, who has previously warned the council about the financial peril of inaction on the issue, declined to speculate on the implications of the decision, saying only that the fiscal impact if things do not go as the city hopes could be “catastrophic.”
Councilmember Jeff Duclos, the lone no vote, said that quality of life disruptions were inevitable in a city as dense as Hermosa, and that both financial and environmental concerns meant he could not support any further delays.
“I think we have to be honest here. We are where we are. We could be back here a year or so later starting from square one. In the meantime 10 billion gallons of effluent and trash or whatever will have gone down that storm drain, and we’ll have done nothing to resolve it,” Duclos said.
The Greenbelt project came out of an agreement among Hermosa, Redondo, Manhattan, Torrance and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District to cooperatively address water quality with regional projects, in part to reduce costs. After the level of opposition to the Greenbelt project became apparent to city officials, Hermosa tried reaching out to Redondo about locating a project in that city that could absorb some of the stormwater intended for the Greenbelt site and allow Hermosa to build a smaller project. The few public statements that elected officials in Redondo had made on the subject offered little hope for that prospect. But just hours before the start of Tuesday’s meeting, the city received a letter from Redondo Mayor Bill Brand, indicating a willingness to allow TetraTech, a consultant with whom Hermosa has contracted on the Greenbelt project, to examine a site on North Francisca Avenue, just east of the AES Power Plant, as a possible project location, provided Hermosa met a series of conditions.
Councilmember Justin Massey, who appeared divided on the dais over his vote, acknowledged that the letter from Redondo guaranteed nothing, but said he was willing to give it a shot.
“I sure wish we had a binding commitment from Redondo Beach. I’m willing to trust your judgment that Option 3 is viable and support it,” Massey said, addressing Armato and Fangary. “But somebody needs to step up and get this thing across the finish line.”
Massey said that his decision was informed by a desire to more equitably address the stormwater burden. As residents opposed to the Greenbelt project often pointed out, Hermosa was the home for the project, even though it contributes a far smaller share to the watershed than Redondo.
An equitable share, Massey said, will include an infiltration project somewhere in Hermosa, possibly on the Greenbelt or at South Park, albeit a potentially smaller one.
Along with quick action by staff and the project subcommittee, getting “across the finish line” will require the commitment of money from Hermosa, for the Francisca investigation and data modeling it will entail. Kathleen McGowan, a consultant who helped Hermosa with the Greenbelt project, said that because of the proximity to the Greenbelt location, the Francisca site could work as a suitable replacement to handle some of the stormwater runoff. However, because it borders AES, which spent decades in service as a power plant, the site may be too close to underground toxins for local regulators to approve it.
Assuming the site is viable, it will require vetting and approval from Redondo’s City Council, and, provided that occurs, approval from the other members of the watershed group. The delay involved in this process also means that the Beach Cities will likely miss deadlines set out in the watershed plan to improve water quality, and will need to secure an extension, known as a “time schedule order,” from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, in order to avoid being subject to fees and penalties. In previous interviews, officials with the regional board have declined to say whether the political opposition generated by the Greenbelt project would meet criteria the board relies on in granting the orders.
