Los Angeles Basin Contaminated Sediments Task Force

Summary of the Implementation Committee Meeting
November 16, 1999

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Attendees

Michael Lyons, LA Regional Water Quality Control Board
Stacey Crouch, Port of Long Beach
Dennis Eschen, City of Long Beach
Doland Cheung, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Dean Smith, LA County Department of Beaches and Harbors
Mitzy Taggart, Heal the Bay
Al Padilla, California Coastal Commission

Streamlining Report

The subcommittee agreed to accept the consolidated state/federal dredging permit application developed by Stacey Crouch. We still need to determine what actions would be required by the regulatory agencies to adopt and initiate use of the new form. Stacey Crouch will talk to the Army Corps of Engineers to find out if they can readily adopt a new form for use by the LA District. Michael Lyons will review the state process for revising a form. At the next meeting, we plan to discuss the streamlining report’s identified options in more detail and develop specific recommendations for improvements.

Funding

Dean Smith reported on a recent meeting (attended by Port of Los Angeles, Port of Long Beach, Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, LA County Department of Public Works and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) to discuss funding options. The Corps favors a two-tiered approach. There would be a feasibility track, involving @ $2 million for critical studies relating to development of a management strategy (with federal cost-sharing, participation by several local sponsors and spreading the study over a few years, the annual cost per agency could be quite low). On the operations and maintenance side, the Corps anticipates @ $4 million would be needed in federal funding to conduct pilot projects.

Mark Gold pointed out that now is potentially a good time to seek funds for projects from the Water and Park bonds, expected to be approved by the voters in the spring. We also need to coordinate with LACDPW to ensure that we avoid duplication of effort, since they plan to implement several watershed projects already.

Workplan

The Implementation Subcommittee is charged with integrating the reports produced by the other subcommittees into a single strategy document. However, some of the subcommittees will take longer to produce their reports than originally anticipated. As a result, we are revising the workplan to push back deadlines related to this integration task.

Streamlining Report

A few comments have been received on the streamlining report. Lauma Jurkevics will revise the draft and distribute the final version to the Task Force for review, comment and approval.

Stacey Crouch, Port of Long Beach, developed a combined state/federal dredging application form for consideration by the subcommittee members. We are still reviewing the document and comments should be submitted to Stacey. We need to determine whether special procedures would be necessary for the regulatory agencies to adopt the use of a new form, if we decide to implement this measure.

Next meeting

TBA (we are considering January 2000)


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