Passing Proposition O

Voters in Los Angeles approve half a billion dollars for stormwater funding.

Overwhelming voter support for a $500 million bond proposal to fund stormwater projects throughout the city of Los Angeles reflects an often-underestimated public support for environmental protection that could foreshadow the passage of similar initiatives across the nation, one backer insists.

Noting that environmental issues were barely mentioned during the 2004 presidential campaign and congressional contests, Mark Gold, executive director of the Santa Monica–based Heal the Bay organization, says, "The public expects clean water, and the outcome on Proposition O just shows what can happen if you give the public an opportunity to make decisions on environment protection. If anyone ever wonders what a mandate is, 75.8% of a city's electorate voting to tax themselves $500 million is a mandate."

Gold notes that the state's beaches and rocky, panoramic shores are "our most valuable asset in California. The public cares very deeply for the coastline."

With a $2 billion tourism industry revolving around Santa Monica Bay's 50 million annual visitors, those concerns transcend mere sentimentality, he adds. "Protecting these natural assets is something that touches everybody here."

Despite Californians' pragmatic and emotional connections to a cleaner coastline, poor water quality has been a nagging concern in southern California for several decades. (In fact, citizen activists founded Heal the Bay in 1985 in response to the devastating environmental effects caused by the City of Los Angeles' discharge of primary treated sewage into Santa Monica Bay.) The EPA and the State of California sued the City of Los Angeles to develop a comprehensive plan to upgrade its sewage treatment and sewer infrastructure. The sewer infrastructure and treatment plant upgrades were completed by 1998, but the Los Angeles region still had severe water-quality problems caused by urban runoff.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry was the driving force behind Proposition O, working in her position as chair of the Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee to craft the initiative's language. Perry, who also has a record of increasing green space and cleaning up brownfields in the city's Ninth District since her election in July 2001, is all too familiar with the adverse effects that street and yard flooding have on residents of south Los Angeles. "For me, this is a really personal issue," she explains, "and that's why I pushed so hard."

Perry and her colleagues drafted Proposition O as a funding mechanism for stormwater cleanup, pollution prevention technologies, habitat and wetlands restoration, the creation of neighborhood parks and greenbelts to filter and control stormwater runoff, drinking-water protection, and water conservation. The measure, which required support from two-thirds of the voters, means an owner of a $350,000 home in Los Angeles will pay about $35 more in taxes each year for the next 24 years.

Proposition O authorizes city officials to issue bonds totaling $250 million to clean rivers, lakes, beaches, bays, and the ocean; $100 million to improve water quality and stop polluted runoff; $75 million to clean and reuse stormwater; and $75 million for water conservation projects. Perry says the improvements are "designed to address the regulatory requirements of the federal Clean Water Act and improve water quality and protect public health and the environment."

Specifically, improvements will be focused on

• reducing bacteria and water toxins in Santa Monica Bay, Marina del Rey, the Los Angeles River, Ballona Creek, Harbor and Cabrillo beaches, and urban lakes by "installing stormwater/runoff diversion structures that redirect flows from the streets to the sewer system for cleansing and treatment based on available sewer capacity"; and
• removing trash from the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek by "constructing and installing catch basin inserts/screens to capture and prevent trash from entering the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek. Removing trash from these waterways will prevent it from reaching urban lakes, beaches, the bay, and ultimately, the ocean."

Gold adds, "The underlying factor here, of course, is not only the stormwater permit requirements but the total maximum daily loads [TMDLs]. Heal the Bay, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Santa Monica BayKeeper sued the Environmental Protection Agency to create TMDLs for Los Angeles and Ventura countys' 150 impaired waters, including bacteria TMDLs for beaches, and trash TMDLs for the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek—and there are soon to be metal TMDLs for both of those waterways."

Health Concerns Factor Heavily
On any given night, Perry says, as many as 50,000 people are living on the streets in and around her district. Large volumes of garbage and human waste mingle with standing water, resulting in health problems ranging from skin lesions and rashes to exposure to tuberculosis.

"In the last 20 years, we've had proliferation of people living on the street, and we need to address a very apparent social issue that is deeply interwoven with environmental and public health issues," she explains. "If you spend any time at all [in the area], you'll see with your own eyes that the presence of bacteria and trash poses a significant hazard to public health."

Stormwater pollutants in Los Angeles have been associated with reproductive difficulties, viral infections, and immune deficiencies. One 1995 epidemiological study of potential adverse health effects of Santa Monica Bay concluded that swimming or surfing near storm drains along beaches posed serious public health risks. Swimmers and surfers exposed to polluted runoff have reported a number of ailments, including stomach flu, respiratory infections, and skin rashes. Other studies determined that humans aren't the only populations at risk, linking pollution to rising death tolls among marine mammals and falling reproductive and survival rates among fish.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services tells beachgoers to avoid contact with ocean water, especially near runoff points, for at least three days after a rainfall. Official county statistics indicate that 93% of more than 1,000 beach health advisories in 2001 were attributed to stormwater runoff.

Heal the Bay data indicate 269 warnings were posted on Los Angeles beaches during 2002, resulting in a total of 1,181 days "where the ocean was too polluted for human use without elevated health risks." The group's 2004 Beach Report Card gave 37% of Los Angeles beaches an F because of microbiological pollution during the rainy season and rated 59% of monitored beaches as having "fair-to-poor" water quality.

Plenty of Work Ahead
Winning a bond issue can be difficult enough, but the hardest work often comes after the election is over. Perry is optimistic that the projects funded by Proposition O will proceed smoothly because a significant amount of planning and preparation has taken place over the past few years.

The magnitude of the bond issue will translate into a multitude of work for stormwater professionals in the public and private sectors, according to Perry and Gold.

Projects will include

• installing thousands of catch basin inserts and other structures throughout the city and constructing additional structures to capture, retain, and treat polluted stormwater and reuse clean water for irrigation at open space and parks;
• developing greenbelts to help treat and conserve stormwater (along with filtering elements, the greenbelts will reduce waterborne toxics that enter local bodies of water); and
• purchasing and developing land to create water-cleansing landscapes and parkways along and surrounding the Los Angeles River and Ballona Creek to reduce stormwater pollution and bacteria that wash into those waterways, through natural filtration and treatment (the parkways are expected to provide a variety of multiple benefits, from controlling stormwater runoff and flooding to creating open space for habitat preservation and recreation).

"There will be a lot of stormwater technology installed across the area," says Gold. "The highest priority will be catch basin inserts to capture trash and keep it from getting into the system and, hopefully, filters to reduce oil and grease and perhaps floating metals. A lot of work has already gone into identifying the trash issues, so that's not going to be the toughest fix for the city. It's going to be much tougher to deal with the metals than the trash," Gold explains. "The other top priority would be reducing bacteria on the beaches by diverting the ‘dry-weather runoff' to the wastewater treatment plant, which happens more than 300 days a year."

Sparse rains during those months tend to significantly raise coliform levels on a number of local beaches. Runoff carries pesticides, herbicides, paint products, pet waste, detergents, motor oil, and trash into Santa Monica Bay.

"Proposition O will allow more funds to be devoted to completion of those projects so that we could have clean beaches over 300 days per year once the diversions are in place," he says.

Gold does not believe that Proposition O will allow dollars to be allocated to mobile equipment, such as street vacuums. However, he adds, "We know that the right sweepers used in the right way really make a difference. That's one of the best ways to reduce metal particulates. So our hope is that the mayor and city council will conclude, ‘We're investing in all these projects to improve the stormwater so we should really invest in vacuums, too.' "

He insists that the project site-selection process poses "an incredible challenge" for stormwater professionals. "There are 4 million people in the city of Los Angeles and 10 million people in the county. We don't have the opportunity to put in giant regional projects like wetponds that capture millions of gallons of water because we just don't have the necessary space. We already have a built-out environment."

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In 1949, the Los Angeles River was channeled for flood control.

Perry concurs with Gold that the endeavor will involve a large amount of retrofitting of the city's infrastructure, but she notes there are areas where she visualizes large new projects. One example she cites is the urban wetland habitat/stormwater management project and educational facility designed for the middle of her district.

"I hope to acquire a large piece of land owned by another government entity to complete the project. In its entirety, this project is well over $10 million, and I have more projects in the pipeline," she says. "I was planning projects well before Proposition O was passed."

Perry notes that projects are also planned throughout Los Angeles. The city's Departments of Public Works, Engineering, and Sanitation will have the responsibility of developing projects that "have multiple uses and that really go the distance in satisfying the requirements and goals set forth in Proposition O.

"Obviously, we'll be looking for infrastructure and the outer edges of technology to keep pace with what we're doing. We need catch basins and inserts and runoff diversion structures," Perry says. "In the district I represent, which includes an area called Skid Row, we not only have to have catch basins to catch waste and process what's going in there, but we need to use these opportunities to hire and train unskilled people so they can gain skills. We need to create greenbelts to connect parks, if possible."

There are also areas of the community that should have had curbs, gutters, and drainage infrastructure decades ago but never reached the front of the line. "It's always bothered me when I go through the district and my shoe gets sucked off by a bog because there's no drainage, and I get complaints from seniors who have standing water in their yard that's been there for weeks and they have mosquitoes breeding there," she says.

How It Was Done
Gold praises then–City of Los Angeles Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton as Proposition O's "unsung hero" because he contended the 2004 election presented a "perfect opportunity" to pass the measure. Gold recalls, "Ron Deaton said, ‘We have a presidential election and there's going to be a huge turnout. In general, when that happens, there's going to be more support for environmental issues.' He expedited the issue, and was able to convince the City Council that they couldn't afford to miss the November ballot."

(A week before the election, Mayor James Hahn asked the Board of Water and Power Commissioners to consider Deaton as the successor to Department of Water and Power General Manager David Wiggs, who had been on medical leave for a year at the time of the announcement.)

A daunting task for advocates was to ensure voters got around to seeing and voting for Proposition O; it was the last item on the last page of the 15-page ballot. The measure may have been far down on the ballot, yet it was far from a small campaign. More than $1 million were raised and spent to familiarize voters with Proposition O and then get them out to vote.

"We had to create enough awareness so there wasn't dropoff between the top of the ballot and Measure O," says Parke Skelton, one of the top democratic strategists in California and the architect of the media campaign in support of Proposition O.

Skelton observes that support for measures on the middle of the ballot dropped to about 80% of the total vote. However, 90.1% of the people who cast votes for president weighed in on the environmental initiative.

Skelton is considered an expert in the direct-mail strategy for political campaigns, but he relied on a different tactic for this initiative. "It was essentially an all-TV campaign for a number of reasons. Mailing to 750,000 to 800,000 households would not have been cost-efficient in this case," he explains. "Most importantly, when we polled people, we found out we weren't working with narrow audiences; the same argument moved everyone about eight to ten points. Early polling showed the issue with public support in the 63% to 64% range, so we got everything we could get out of the TV campaign—and maybe a little more."

Because television time is expensive in Los Angeles and was in short supply due to other campaigns, Skelton opted for 15-second spots in hopes of doubling the ads' impacts. "We went with ‘bookends' at the beginning and end of a commercial block, and ran four TV spots in two pairs," he says.

Rather than airing television commercials with disturbing images of dead birds and fish scattered along local beaches or magnifying the very real public health hazards, Skelton crafted vignettes featuring "positive human interactions with water—people fishing from piers, kids at the river, a surfer."

Skelton, Gold, and Perry describe the margin of victory as an affirmation for a strategy that emphasized an upbeat message. They point to another ballot measure that would have raised taxes to put more law enforcement officers on the streets. Early polling indicated that the measure had more than the 66% of public support necessary for passage early in the campaign, but an advertising campaign accentuating violent crime and the accompanying fear factor alienated many voters. On Election Day, only 59% of the people who went to the polls cast "yes" votes for that measure.

In addition to the strong presence on television, the Proposition O campaign had three staff people whose duties involved generating endorsements and free media coverage as well as tapping into the in-house communications networks of supporting organizations to identify, persuade, motivate, and turn out voters.

"We went to business groups early in the process and they were all for it, as was [organized labor]," Skelton says.

Gold elaborates, "We had universal support. The city council voted 15-0 in support of Proposition O, and they never vote 15-0 on anything. Mayor Hahn was supportive. But the key is that there was no organized opposition. The anti-tax groups didn't come out against it, because how can you be against a fundamental right?"

Skelton also recalls that the campaign organized a number of targeted news conferences to reach out to ethnic groups. And, as if to prove that when things go right they really go right, even the weather seemed to side with proponents. In late October, with voters still making up their minds and the election just a week away, a rare 3-inch rainstorm pelted the city.

"It flushed everything onto the beaches. The press wants to cover the rain because that's one of the most important stories you can get, so we ended up with eight TV cameras down at the beach taking shots of all the trash," Skelton recounts with glee.

What's Next?
With the thrill of the election victory fading, Perry notes, "The bottom line is we have to satisfy the needs of our constituents. Proposition O presented us with another major opportunity to serve those constituents, and I'm very grateful people saw it that way."

She emphasizes that the Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee under her leadership will hold regular meetings and provide timely progress reports to Los Angeles residents.

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Gold concurs, "The biggest priority will be to make sure the city spends the money wisely and that it results in cleaner water. The danger when you pass a measure like this is that the bond dollars can get squandered on park projects. There will be citizen oversight and administrative oversight committees and periodic reviews by the city controller. There will be minimum eligibility criteria [for contractors] and ranking criteria [for projects]. And, frankly, this is where the vigilance of the environmental community comes in."

Nonetheless, Gold believes Proposition O has laid the foundation for similar victories in other parts of the United States. "Environmental protection is a much stronger issue nationally than people give it credit for, and that's a big reason it doesn't get discussed like it should. It's a public rights and public trust issue. You won't find a person who thinks they don't have a right to clean air and water. People want to go to the beach and not get sick. They want to catch fish and eat them without getting sick. That's as true in Iowa or any other state as it is in California."

Author's Bio: Eric Woolson is based in West Des Moines, IA.