Los Angeles Basin Contaminated Sediments Task Force

Summary of Sediment Screening Thresholds Committee Meeting
October 7, 1999

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Funding Opportunities

The Army Corps of Engineers may obtain funds for the CSTF through the General Investigation Fund or through the operations and maintenance budget. Congress recently added $100,000 to the Corps’ General Investigation Fund for a reconnaissance study (100% federal money), which hopefully would result in a follow-up feasibility study (50% cost-sharing with a local sponsor, half of which could be in-kind services, half cash). CMANC recommended adding $500,000 to the Corps’ budget for FY2001 for a Dredge Management Plan (cost-sharing required). No O&M funds have been allocated for CSTF activities for FY00, but it is possible that funds could be added for FY01. The Corps would prefer that all funds come from a single source (GI or O&M). The advantages of the GI are that the Corps already has money ($100,000) to start the process, cost sharing would be involved in any feasibility study which would decrease the cost to the federal government and there would be more local sponsor input and commitment. The O&M route would not require cost sharing, so the Corps would exert more control over the studies, it would require a line item in the federal budget (or funds could be added to an existing line item) to accomplish a specific task (e.g., a DMMP) and an authorization bill would be required (e.g., WERDA), and actual dollars would have to be added to the budget. The Corps anticipates that we will need to carry out some pilot projects to test dredging or disposal procedures, which may be expensive and probably could be implemented through the O&M process.

The Corps will need input from each CSTF subcommittee to develop a scope of work for the feasibility study. Cost-sharing requirements would require contributions for a local sponsor(s); however, the contributions could be shared by several agencies and spread over several years. The Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles expressed skepticism about their willingness to contribute money towards a feasibility study. Dean Smith, LA County Beaches and Harbors, volunteered to broker a meeting with the Corps and other players to discuss funding and commitments for CMANC recommendations, to be held in October if possible.

Strategy Adoption Process Report

Ralph Appy developed a timeline for the adoption process. Subcommittee members should review the chart and submit comments to Ralph (in particular, we need comments from EPA and the Corps).

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

November 16, 9:00 – 11:00 am, Port of Long Beach


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