Clean Water Program Reports
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Executive Summary
As the new home of CALPIRG's environmental work, Environment California
can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.
This report finds that the regional water boards of California are
failing to adequately implement the federal Clean Water Act - one of
the nation’s most important environmental laws.
Clean water enforcement is handled by nine regional boards under the
State Water Resources Control Board. These regional boards are
responsible for enforcing clean water laws. We examined data from
January 1997 to March 1999 from three regions—San Diego, Sacramento,
and Los Angeles—and found that water quality enforcement is
surprisingly low. In the three regions we studied, there were 6783
violations in two years, with only 238 (3.5%) resulting in formal
enforcement action, and only 44 (.65%) resulting in fines. Our findings
are consistent with a State audit cited by the Legislative Analysist's
Office in their 1999 report. It found that, in 1996-97, there were 4748
violations in the state, with only 255 (5%) resulting in formal
enforcement actions and only 49 (1%) resulting in fines.1
Our research did uncover improvements in the three regions between 1997
and 1999. Specifically, the Los Angeles region made important strides
in tracking and punishing violators. Also, there were other
improvements in areas such as storm water compliance which are not
covered in this report. However, the data reveals that the overall
state water quality enforcement continues to be extremely low.
A water quality violation is either a discharge violation or a
reporting violation. A discharge violation involves a direct impact on
State waters. When the State determines discharge violations, it
includes spills and storm water run-off. However, in this report we
chose to omit violations related to storm water run-off and spills that
were not specifically cited as violations. The state determines a
reporting violation as failure to submit monitoring reports, submitting
reports more than 30 days late, or submitting incomplete reports. We
have included all of these violations in this report except those that
concern storm water permits.
Formal enforcement actions consist of: Clean Up and Abatement Orders;
Cease and Desist Orders; Time Schedule Orders; and Administrative Civil
Liabilities. Only in the case of Administrative Civil Liabilities is a
fine associated with the enforcement action.
Many of the discharge violations come from repeat violators. Among
other things, our report found that one discharger in the Sacramento
region had 13 discharge violations in three months, while another, Camp
Pendleton in San Diego, had 176 violations throughout the two years
studied.
More reporting violations come from discharging facilities which fail
to properly monitor and report their pollutant discharges. The water
boards rely on this self-reported information to conduct the bulk of
their water quality enforcement. In one region alone, we found four
dischargers who had not filed a monitoring report in four years, one
who had not filed a monitoring report in five years, and one who had
not filed an annual monitoring report in ten years. An incalculable
amount of pollution undoubtedly comes from those who fail to report.
In conclusion, we find that water quality enforcement throughout the
State needs to be increased. A bill that is currently pending approval
by the governor (AB 1104, Migden) sets minimum penalties for those
facilities which seriously and repeatedly violate their clean water
permits. The bill is modeled after a law passed in New Jersey in 1990
that set minimum penalties for serious and repeat violators and has
proven there to be an effective deterrent against water pollution.
CALPIRG endorses the passage of this bill.
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