CITY NEEDS TO CHANGE FLOW OF CLEAN WATER ACT.

Byline: Terry Tamminen and Jack Weiss Local View

TODAY marks the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the landmark federal law to protect watersheds, beaches and drinking water.

Sadly, at our beaches, children and adults who swim near storm drains flowing from the city of Los Angeles are 50 percent more likely to develop symptoms such as ear infections and diarrhea than those who swim 400 yards away. Millions of pounds of trash pass though our local waterways each year and land on the beaches.

Urban runoff is the leading cause of pollution in our local waters and is the source of all these problems. Yet for most city leaders, urban runoff has not become a serious concern.

While Los Angeles has been an environmental innovator in areas such as energy efficiency, green power and low-flow toilets, it has failed to lead efforts to improve water quality in our rivers and bays. In fact, the city is fighting measures that would improve waterways and beaches, but local policymakers can still change course. The city should stop polluting and abandon its legal challenge to the new Los Angeles municipal stormwater permit, a plan focused on reducing urban runoff.

The permit plan, adopted under the 1972 federal Clean Water Act, for the first time requires meaningful improvements in beach water quality. The permit requires the city to limit pollutants and trash entering the waterways, which will make the waters safer for swimmers and marine life alike. Unfortunately, earlier this year a majority of the City Council voted to appeal the permit to remove its most meaningful provisions.

Perhaps urban runoff and municipal permits have failed to capture the public's attention because these are highly technical issues. Yet there is really nothing very technical about being able to take your kids to the beach without running the risk that they'll play with more trash than seashells or miss the following week of school due to waterborne illnesses.

The city is backsliding on other environmental fronts, too. The council voted this year to sue the Bush and Davis administrations over a 13-year plan to reduce trash in the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek - limits that EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said ``provide the flexibility and time needed for cities to implement effective, and cost- effective, controls on trash.'' The city remains the defendant in a four- year federal lawsuit brought by the EPA, the state, and numerous environmental groups because of sewage spills and odor problems from human waste (at least 682 sewage spills occurred in the city system last year alone).

Opponents of these cleanup plans try to justify the city's foot-dragging with economic excuses. They say it is too hard and too expensive to meet the standards and that to do so will cripple the local economy. This is false.

Better water quality benefits business, property values and quality of life everywhere. According to the State Department of Boating, visitors to California beaches spent more than $61 billion in 2001, and California's beaches generate more than $15 billion annually in tax revenue.

Environmental protection and economic progress are not mutually exclusive - they are inextricably linked.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 set a goal of fishable, swimmable waters - by 1983. Unless resolved, the city's legal battles make it doubtful that Los Angeles will achieve this benchmark even three decades late.

The city has an opportunity to take a proactive rather than combative approach to environmental preservation and cleanup. It is time for the City Council to show leadership and political courage on issues relating to water quality in Los Angeles. It is time to stop challenging efforts to curtail polluted urban runoff, for the benefit of the millions of adults and children who flock to our beaches each year - and the thousands of businesses throughout the region that depend upon them.