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Runoff Controversy
Fri Apr 22, 2005
Listen in RealAudio 
We usually think of rainstorms as washing away unhealthy air, but in Los Angeles it's
just the opposite. Pollution is most severe during the rain. As correspondent Chris
Richard tells us, cleaning up the air has sparked controversy.
You know that song, "It Never Rains In Southern California"? Sometimes it seems that
the civil engineers who built LA and the surrounding suburbs really believed that.
Because when it does rain, even a little bit, all hell breaks loose. Roadways flood.
Traffic lights fail. And untreated storm runoff pours into the Pacific.
Dennis Dickerson of the Southern California Regional Water Authority:
DD: The runoff is picking up any number of contaminants that may be on the streets.
So if you have a homeless population, that is one area that may be contributing human
fecal matter. You have a lot of trash in our catch basins, and that flows to the ocean. So
you have all different kinds of contaminants, from oils and grease from your cars to
copper from brake pads, just a whole host of different contaminants.
Dickerson's agency has ordered Southern California to come up with ways to reduce
runoff or dry up pollution sources. Recommendations range from better street
sweeping to more catch basins.
But a group of University of Southern California professors claims that the water quality
standards require water purification plants, and they estimate costs of cleanup
programs at $300 billion.
USC Engineering professor Jim Moore:
JM: There are costs to pollution, and those costs are real, and there are costs
associated with controlling pollution. And what we're talking about is trading off the
two.
The Los Angeles County Board of supervisors and 47 city governments are suing to
block the clean water requirements until they can be modified.
But Dickerson says the USC study grossly overestimates cleanup costs by claiming
his agency wants runoff to be clean enough to drink. He says the cities that paid for the
study are just dodging their responsibilities.
DD: The people who are polluting are trying to avoid the costs of the pollution that they
generate.
And Dickerson says there are costs to not cleaning up the mess, too, like damage to
Southern California's vitally important tourist industry.
That's correspondent Chris Richard in Los Angeles. The Weather Notebook is
underwritten by Subaru and the National Science Foundation.
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