There is now new hope for a safe, clean and healthful Santa Monica Bay on the horizon, and it begins in the very community that in many ways gave birth to our movement and gives its name to our bay — Santa Monica.
The city of Santa Monica is asking voters to approve Measure V to provide the resources needed to implement a far-reaching plan the city has approved to clean up the most serious source of pollution to our bay — the grossly polluted runoff that spills into the ocean from our storm drains.
If Measure V passes, however, the implications will extend far beyond the city of Santa Monica. Communities all over the region — including the city and county of Los Angeles — will have an expert-developed, City Environmental Task Force-reviewed-and-endorsed roadmap to follow to a safe and clean Santa Monica Bay.
Having worked on this issue for nearly two decades, a roadmap is just what we need, and Santa Monica, with its long history of environmental leadership, is the community to provide it.
The voters of the city of Los Angeles have demonstrated that they are ready to do their share. In November 2004, they approved a $500 million bond for stormwater cleanup called Measure O. It passed with 76 percent of the vote. Santa Monica’s roadmap for a healthy bay can immediately influence priorities there.
From the very beginning of Heal the Bay, we understood that restoring our beautiful Santa Monica Bay to full health would be a daunting task, a task that might even take generations. So many years of thoughtless, and in some cases even, criminal polluting activities by governments, businesses and individuals had severely degraded our beautiful bay.
It is tragic that so many people — children, swimmers, surfers and beach lovers of all ages — still get sick swimming in the bay. Just this week, we released our End of Summer Beach Report Card (see page 1), and once again, the beach next to Santa Monica Pier is one of the five most polluted in the state. Measure V would provide funds to replace the corroded, leaky drain under the pier — the biggest source of fecal bacteria to that beach. The water quality during the rainy season is even worse, and inexcusably, every rain leaves our beaches looking like trash dumps.
With new water quality regulations in place, clean beaches are no longer a moral obligation — it’s the law. Santa Monica will have to pay for clean beaches out of the General Funds that provide us such wonderful services, or we can approve Measure V to provide earmarked funds to clean up our bay and beaches.
Measure V has been enthusiastically endorsed by virtually every environmental group involved with ocean issues, including Heal the Bay, the Sierra Club, NRDC, Santa Monica Baykeeper, Global Green and others. It is supported, as well, by the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Association, SMPD, Senator Sheila Kuehl, Assemblyperson Fran Pavley, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities and nearly every elected official in the city.
Please join all of us in making a difference. We need a two-thirds vote to pass this measure. With your help, clean beaches and a healthy Santa Monica Bay are within our grasp.
Mark Gold is the executive director for Heal the Bay.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 25, 2006. Read the original PDF.