SR-08-13-2013-3PID
City of
Santa 110ni C79
City Council Meeting: August 13, 2013
Agenda Item: 3 -P
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Dean Kubani, Director, Office of Sustainability and the Environment
Subject: Cost - sharing Monitoring Plan for the Santa Monica Bay Beaches Bacterial
Total Maximum Daily Load
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1) Authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute a Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) with the City of Los Angeles to implement a cost -share
monitoring plan to comply with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality
Control Board's Bacterial Total Maximum Daily Load requirements for the
Santa Monica Bay Beaches.
2) Appropriate the budget increases as outlined in the Financial Impacts and
Budget Actions section of this report.
Executive Summary
The City is obligated, as a municipal agency within the boundaries of the National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit system of Los Angeles County,
to comply with requirements of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) to reduce pollution
from urban runoff into the Santa Monica Bay. TMDLs require monitoring plans to collect
data on water quality prior to and after TMDLs are implemented to demonstrate
compliance with water quality objectives. As a member of the jurisdiction that drains
into the Santa Monica Bay watershed, the City is obligated to share in the costs of
implementing a monitoring plan for the Santa Monica Bay Beaches Bacterial TMDL that
has been established for this watershed. The cost over the three year monitoring period
of the MOA will not exceed $165,000.
Background
The Federal Clean Water Act (CWA) requires the California Regional Water Quality
Control Board, Los Angeles Region (Board), to develop water quality standards that
identify beneficial uses, and criteria to protect beneficial uses, for each water body
found within its region. Beneficial uses include swimming, fishing, drinking water,
navigability, and wildlife habitats and reproduction. Section 303(d) of the CWA requires
states to prepare a list of water bodies that do not meet water quality standards and
establish for each of these water bodies pollutant load allocations known as total
maximum daily loads (TMDLs) which will ensure attainment of water quality standards.
A TMDL represents an amount of pollution that can be released by anthropogenic and
natural sources of a watershed into a specific water body without causing a decline in
water quality and beneficial uses.
The Santa Monica Bay watershed is listed on California's 2006 Section 303(d) list due
to impairments by bacteria, and its beaches are subject to postings and closures due to
elevated concentrations of this pollutant. The Board adopted bacterial TMDLs for wet
and dry weather runoff into the Bay in 2003. These TMDLs regulate the amount of
bacteria found in discharges of runoff from the cities within the Bay watershed.
The City Council approved the initial MOA for cost - sharing bacterial monitoring on July
8 2003. Since this time, the MOA has been renewed with a small or no change to the
annual monitoring cost.
In accordance with the Bacterial TMDLs, the City of Los Angeles submitted a
Coordinated Monitoring Plan (CMP) for compliance with the TMDLs on behalf of the
agencies within the Bay watershed. The City of Los Angeles currently performs all
required monitoring and reporting to the Board, and annually invoices the City of Santa
Monica for its share of monitoring costs.
Discussion
On November 28, 2012, the Board approved a new NDPES permit with much more
extensive monitoring requirements than were included in the previous permit. The
expansion of monitoring requirements in the new permit require the adoption of a new
MOA with the City of Los Angeles to incorporate an increase in the amount of funding
the City of Santa Monica provides to Los Angeles to complete the monitoring necessary
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to comply with the permit. The monitoring costs for the City of Santa Monica are
estimated to increase from the current level of $3,700 per year to almost $55,000 per
year under the terms of the new permit. Under the terms of the MOA the City of Los
Angeles would continue to be responsible for all monitoring and reporting activities to
the Board.
Financial Impacts & Budget Actions
Santa Monica's share. of the monitoring costs per the terms of the MOA is not to exceed
$165,000 over the three -year monitoring period ending FY 2013 -16. This involves an
estimated payment of $55,000 to the City of Los Angeles for FY 2013 -14 and FY 2014-
15. Executing the MOA requires an additional appropriation of $55,000 in FY 2013 -14
and FY 2014 -15 to account 06402.555170. The payment will be charged to account
06402.555170. Funding for the remaining years will be included in that division's
proposed budget and is contingent upon Council approval.
Prepared by: Neal Shapiro, Senior Environmental Analyst
Approved:
Dean Kubani
Director, Office of Sustainability &
the Environment
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Forwarded to Council:
Rod Gould
City Manager
Reference:
Agreement No. 9785
(CCS)