The Port of Los Angeles and Environment California have tentatively agreed to a consent decree to resolve litigation alleging the port violated the federal Clean Water Act by releasing untreated wastewater into San Pedro Bay since 2019.
The environmental group alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in the Central District of California last year that the city of Los Angeles Port Department was responsible for more than 2,000 illegal discharges of pollution over a five-year period. Included in the discharge were high levels of toxic copper and fecal bacteria, according to Environment California.
In the settlement proposal, the port does not acknowledge any liability for the discharges, which were carried out by a pump station constructed to prevent flooding on an underpass built in the 1990s.
Environment California alleged in its lawsuit that the pump station’s discharges into the harbor’s Cerritos Chanel violated a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The settlement puts in place safeguards to end the discharge of untreated wastewater and groundwater and to monitor future discharges.
The port will have to spend substantial additional funds to comply with the provisions of the tentative settlement, according to Anthony Lewis DeHope, staff attorney for the National Environmental Law Center and counsel for Environment California.
“Last year, the port allocated $2,759,000 … to partially address the underlying causes of the pollution at issue in our lawsuit,” DeHope said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record. “We expect the final costs to be significantly higher because some measures from the proposed settlement are not included in these figures, and because of rising construction costs.”
But once the improvements are fully in place, treatment and monitoring costs to prevent toxic discharges will drop substantially, he said.
“All costs will come out of the port’s budget that is solely funded by leasing and shipping fees, and not from Los Angeles taxpayers,” DeHope said.
If the agreement is approved by U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo Marshall, stormwater or groundwater that is contaminated with port pollutants will be treated at the Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant, according to Environment California.
The port will also have to pay other costs, according to the terms of the settlement, including a $1.3 million payout to the Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment to establish a trust fund. Most of those funds will be used to remove tons of garbage from San Pedro Bay, Environment California reported.
In addition, the defendant would pay a $130,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury and $315,000 to reimburse the plaintiffs for the cost of the litigation, including attorney fees and expert witness fees.
“This settlement has a double benefit for the harbor,” said Environment California’s state director,Laura Deehan in a prepared statement. “In addition to ending the Port’s discharge violations, the settlement funds will remove trash and go a long way toward ensuring cleaner, better days in the harbor’s future.”
If the port fails to comply with provisions of the settlement, monetary penalties starting at $250 per day would be triggered, according to the provisions of the agreement.