This past week, Q-line asked: “What can local and county government agencies do to improve water quality and regulation compliance in Los Angeles County?”
Here are your responses: ✆ “What can these agencies do to improve water quality and regulation compliance in LA County? Monitor and enforce the laws that they are being paid handsomely to do. A good example of this inefficiency is the city of Santa Monica that has numerous laws on the books that no one bothers to enforce. Consequently, the mess that we have in this city, including the beaches.” ✆ “The pollution of sea water along Los Angeles County’s coastal shores are caused by three major sources. These sources being the Los Angeles River that empties into Long Beach Bay, Ballona Creek that empties into Santa Monica Bay, and automobile oil spillage that is caused by cracked engine gaskets that leak upon our highways. The first heavy rains of Los Angeles County’s rain season washes the accumulated debris from these three sources into the ocean. Santa Monica Bay would greatly benefit if bulldozers were used to clean Ballona Creek prior to the rain season. Ditto Los Angeles River. There would be no oil washed into the bay area waters if automobile owners would have their automobile gaskets repaired.” ✆ “A lot of the bad water quality comes from people dumping stuff in the street. You see a lot of these businesses will close down things, machinery, and just dump the soapy water in the gutter. They should start issuing tickets for that...” ✆ “Twenty years of Heal the Bay and we still can’t go in the water? Any business CEO with that kind of record would have been fired. Who certifies the water quality? Is it Heal the Bay, is it Bay Keepers, is it the Surfrider Foundation? I mean how many self-serving nonprofits are supposedly protecting the bay from human contact? Mr. Mark Gold, CEO of the Heal the Bay, declined in a profile of the week in your paper to state his salary. I think any organization that receives one-third of its funding from the taxpayers should be required to list highly paid executives’ salaries. All this silly nonsense about emergency beach cleanup. We have a wonderful group called beach maintenance. City workers who use tractors and sand sifters to clean debris from the beach. These hysterics about water quality is just overblown propaganda to justify funding. I have been swimming in the Santa Monica Bay for 50 years, no problems except with the record amount in this town of nonprofit scam artists. How do these nongovernmental organizations have the power to close sections of the beach, or close them off for the snowy plover? Could it be the council’s spineless approach to environmental progressives? I would rather see an incredible organization like the National Wildlife Organization doing the testing and monitoring. Wake up Santa Monica and smell the Pacific Ocean, you’re getting hosed.” ✆ “Enforce the current regulations on the books, and it would be the same for the homeless in Santa Monica. Enforce the current regulations on the books. It’s that easy.” ✆ “The best way to improve the water condition is to remove those minerals which are totally hard and cannot be digested. Also, to remove fluoride.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 5, 2005. Read the original PDF.