Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association

SMCCA Demands Beach Cleanup

Letter sent to City of LA water quality officials

Dear Mike, Carl and Alice,
Just when we thought our biggest problem was extending dry weather diversion throughout the year on days it is not raining, we learn the installed "low flow" diversion system in Santa Monica Canyon is not even working as advertised during the summer dry season.

Please see the linked story from the Palisadian Post. [ http://www.palisadespost.com/content/index.cfm?Story_ID=483 ] It is thoroughly researched and highlights the problem. I believe the diversion dam is undersized, resulting in unintended discharges of storm water overflowing and ponding on the beach. The interim fix for this situation is the periodic breaching of the sand bar to drain the polluted water into the surf line where children and others play. This is an unsatisfactory outcome after the expenditure of over $700,000 to clean up our beach. I see four alternatives for a cleaner beach:
Pump out the pond when it fills,
Increase the capacity of the dam so it does not overflow to the beach in dry weather,
Prohibit up-stream residents and businesses from hosing down sidewalks and driveways into the street and take other necessary steps to reduce dry weather runoff,
Install the surf-zone bypass pipe as proposed by Alejandro Ortiz, AIA
There may be other reasonable steps that can be taken to eliminate this problem. Please reply and let us know what steps you will take to remedy this problem and what timetable we can expect.

Sincerely,

George Wolfberg, President
Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association
P.O. Box 3441
Santa Monica, CA 90408-3441
310.454.4448
www.smcca.org
info@smcca.org