EPA CANCELS STOP ORDER ON BASIN CLEANUP PALMDALE OFFICIALS NOW FREE TO INSTALL NEW STORM DRAINS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE- After evaluating their loss in the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar case, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials withdrew an order blocking the city of Palmdale from cleaning up a flood control basin that federal officials considered a wetlands.

Delayed for a year by legal wrangling, city officials plan to finish work on the basin at Heathrow Drive and Town Center Drive as soon as approval is received from the state's Lahonton Regional Water Quality Board.

The Heathrow basin work, and cleanup work on a dozen other flood control basins, has been on hold because of the EPA order.

``The ramifications were huge to this city and to other cities in California,'' Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said of the EPA's decision. ``If we're not able to maintain basins we would not be able to protect private property. Imagine the costs if we had to go through an environmental review each time we wanted to work on a basin.''

The decision to rescind the Palmdale order comes in the wake of a defeat the EPA suffered in a case involving ponds at an abandoned strip mine in Northern Cook County, Illnois. In a 5-4 ruling issued in January, the Supreme Court said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority by applying the Clean Water Act, protecting ``navigable waters'' and ``the waters of the United States,'' to the isolated ponds at the strip mine.

The Clean Water Act regulates the dredging and filling of wetlands.

In a letter to the city dated May 15, Alexis Strauss, director of the Water Division of EPA Region 9, said the Illnois case caused the agency to ``re-evaluate the scope of the agency's regulatory authority'' over isolated water bodies. Strauss said the decision to rescind the order, however, does not represent a finding by the EPA that the Palmdale basin is not covered by the Clean Water Act.

Palmdale should receive word from Lahonton about the project within a few days, said Steve Williams, Palmdale's director of public works.

``What we're trying to do is configure it (the basin) so water doesn't pond and create a health hazard,'' Williams said.

Alerted by residents angry over the removal in April 2000 of ducks and geese living in the basin, federal officials told the city to stop work on installation of new drains and ordered it to come up with a plan for putting the basin back the way it was. At the time, the EPA said the city had to obtain a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before any work could be done.

The basin has the soils, vegetation and hydrology of a wetlands, whether or not it was created artificially, the EPA said. It had become home at least part of the year to migratory waterfowl covered by international treaty, including Canada geese, the agency said.

City officials said the only ducks and geese they removed were domestic breeds, not migratory waterfowl.

In the ruling in the Illnois case, the U.S. Supreme Court majority said the authority that the Army Corps of Engineers claimed over isolated waters would, if upheld, ``result in a significant impingement of the states' traditional and primary power over land and water use.''

The regulation the court invalidated was known as the migratory bird rule, because it asserted jurisdiction over waters that were or could be used by birds that cross state lines or that are protected by international treaties.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which issued the regulation in 1986, invoked it to block a landfill project in an abandoned strip mine in northeastern Illinois. The mine had partially returned to forest, with the depressions left by the mining operations having turned into ponds that had become a breeding ground for great blue herons.

The project received approval from local and state agencies before the Army Corps, deciding that the migratory bird rule gave it jurisdiction, denied a permit.

CAPTION(S):

photo, map

Photo:

EPA officials reconsidered an order blocking Palmdale from cleaning up a flood control basin at Town Center Drive and Heathrow Drive. Last year the city removed ducks and geese living in the basin so it could install new drains.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

Map: Stormwater catch basin