The Weekly Newspaper of Torrance Herald Publications - Torrance, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 5, No. 52 - December 24, 2015 Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.....................10 Classifieds............................4 Crossword/Sudoku.............4 Film Review..........................4 Legals....................................9 Police Reports.....................3 Real Estate.........................12 Sports....................................5 TerriAnn in Torrance..........6 Weekend Forecast Spreading Cheer in South Bay These ladies, Leah Sullivan, in white, with the Torrance Dance and Drill Team, helped celebrate the holidays in El Segundo’s Holiday Parade on December 13th. Photo by Marcy Dugan. • Friday Sunny 58˚/42˚ Saturday Sunny 61˚/41˚ Sunday Sunny 61˚/44˚ City, Stakeholder Agencies to Prepare Contaminated Sediment Management Plan By Cristian Vasquez Torrance Mayor Patrick J. Furey and members of the city council approved a Memorandum of Agreement [MOA] with Los Angeles County, and other stakeholder agencies, for the Contaminated Sediment Management Plan [CSMP] for the Dominguez Channel. The Memorandum of Agreement will also include The Cities of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Carson, as well as, Caltrans and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. The L.A. County Flood Control District will establish the terms and conditions for the County of L.A. to prepare the CSMP and compliance with Dominguez Channel and Harbors Toxics Total Maximum Daily Loads, as well as the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System [NPDES] permit. The city will reimburse the county $31,154 for its share of the CSMP, via its Sewer Operating Budget. “This is an agreement that we are going to enter into with the county and various other cities that are tributary to the Dominguez Channel,” Torrance Public Works Director Robert J. Beste said. “What this memorandum will do is, it will allows us to study the sediment at the bottom of the channel and part of our NPDES permit is to look into how much toxins are entering the L.A. Harbor.” Enforcement of the Clean Water Act is the responsibility of regional boards under the jurisdiction of the State Water Quality Control Board. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board is tasked with issuing NPDES permits to localities and agencies across the state, including L.A. County and cities within its boundaries. The permit allows localities to discharge storm water and urban runoff, but it makes each agency responsible for controlling pollutants and for the cleaning of any affected waters within their jurisdiction. The Dominguez Channel is a 15.7-mile-long stream running through various cities and along with 15 other cities, is part of Torrance’s jurisdiction. It is estimated that 43,400 acres of the Watershed drains to the Dominguez Channel, which begins in the City of Hawthorne and discharges into the Los Angeles Harbor in the east basin. Through the Clean Water Act, states are mandated to develop and enforce Total Maximum Daily Loads [TMDLs] in order to reduce and limit the amount of pollutants released from storm drains, into impaired waters. The City of Torrance is regulated by the following TMDLs for its watershed: Machado Lake, Nutrient and Toxics TMDLs, Santa Monica Bay Beaches Bacteria, Trash and Toxics TMDLs and Dominguez Channel and Harbors Toxic TMDL. “Following this plan, in the middle of next year, they are going to look at a loading amount of sediment that is actually going to measure the toxins in the sediment itself,” Beste said. “Sometime at the end of next year, we will be looking at options as to how to deal with the issue. This plan is just the first part in a long series of studies on the Dominguez Channel and the L.A. Harbor.” The NPDES Permit incorporated the Dominguez Channel and Harbors Toxic TMDL, hence making the requirement to prepare and submit a CSMP to the Board by March 23, 2014. The CSMP articulated how agencies were to monitor and address contaminated sediments through the unlined segments of the channel running from the 110 Freeway to the Long Beach Harbor. Also outlined by the CSMP are Best Management Practices and cost-sharing formulas to deal with contaminated sediment. Initially the City of Torrance lacked a funding source for the 2013-2014 fiscal year CSMP submitted by the county. Hence, the council approved a Letter of Intent on March 18, 2014 to participate with the county and deferred participating in a cost-sharing MOA. “The CSMP commits participating agencies to perform a special study to determine the amount of sediment deposited in the estuary during a typical year,” states the staff report. “The Sediment Deposition Special Study is expected to commence in mid-2016. The results of this study will inform the group’s decision on how to proceed with implementing BMPs prescribed in the CSMP.” It is expected that a future MOA will be processed to fund that subsequent study, once all proposals have been received, as well as a firm selected.•
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