The Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter participates in many ongoing projects and actions in which you are invited and
encouraged to help with.
Current initiatives:
Background info that helps to guide our Policy Committee on some of these issues:
Recent victories for the San Diego County Chapter:
Victory! Surfrider v. City of San Diego (Sewage Spills/Infrastructure Suit)
Date: 2001-2007 (Settled via Consent Decree October 12, 2007)
In 2001 the Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper sued the City of San Diego for violating the
federal Clean Water Act. The lawsuit focused on the City’s history of chronic sewage spills, which at the
time of filing averaged almost a spill a day. In the lawsuit, Surfrider identified thousands of spills
occurring over a five year period, with discharges totaling more than 45 million gallons into local waters.
The goal of the lawsuit was first to spotlight the City’s shoddy spill record and lack of attention to the
issue. Second, the suit sought to achieve reductions in spills by requiring the City to set an aggressive
schedule for sewer pipe and pump station maintenance, repair, and replacement.
On May 22, 2007, the San Diego City Council approved a final settlement, or “Consent Decree”, with the
Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Coastkeeper and the U.S. EPA. The Consent Decree mandates that by 2013 the
City will replace at least 450 miles of aged sewer pipes, upgrade and/or replace more than 20 pump
stations, and continue implementation of an aggressive inspection and maintenance program. Ultimately,
compliance with the Consent Decree will result in a public infrastructure investment of more than $1
billion. Since the year leading up to the lawsuit (2000), the City’s early implementation of the Consent
Decree terms has resulted in an approximately 80% reduction in spills, including those during one of the
rainiest years ever experienced in the region.
While Surfrider is extremely pleased with the outcome of this lawsuit and the significant reduction in
sewage spills to date, the San Diego Chapter will continue to monitor the City to ensure compliance through
the full term of the Consent Decree.
Decision making body: San Diego City Council
How the victory benefits the environment or improves access: Better maintenance and timely repair/replacement of sewer
infrastructure means fewer spills and ultimately cleaner water.
Partner organization: San Diego Coastkeeper
Victory! Indirect Potable Reuse vote and veto
Date: October 29, 2007 and December 4, 2007
Following Surfrider’s and San Diego Coastkeeper’s 2002 lawsuits against the City of San Diego for
improperly approving a waiver of secondary sewage treatment at its Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant,
the environmental organizations entered into a multi-pronged settlement that required, among other things,
that the City conduct a study of all available opportunities to increase water recycling within its service
area. The environmental groups primarily sought to resurrect a previously failed Indirect Potable Reuse
(IPR) project which would result in highly treated sewage being combined with San Diego’s raw water from
the Colorado River or San Francisco Bay Delta. Sometimes called “toilet to tap,” the environmental groups
nonetheless sought to re-initiate discussion among community leaders and citizens about the benefits of
such a local source of water.
After the production of a comprehensive Water Reuse Study involving numerous meetings, dozens of community
leaders, and a technical advisory committee, the City Council finally took action. On October 29, 2007 the
San Diego City Council approved a resolution authorizing the beginning steps of an Indirect Potable Re-Use
(IPR) project in San Diego. The City Water Department was directed by the Council to:
Execute a one-year demonstration project of the Advanced Water Treatment (AWT) process to begin July 1, 2008;
Conduct a current flow and detention study at the San Vicente Reservoir to ensure that any treated sewage added to the inflow would remain in the reservoir for at least one year before being processed for potable purposes.;
Perform an independent energy and economic analysis for all water supply options in the Long-Range Water Resources Plan; and,
Conduct community education and outreach.
The serious consideration and possible implementation of IPR would be an enormous victory for the environment. Not only would this
new source of water be much more environmentally friendly than options such as desalination or imported water, it would also result
in reduced flows of treated sewage into the Pacific Ocean via the Point Loma Ocean Outfall.
In mid November Mayor Jerry Sanders vetoed the City Council’s motion. Recognizing the importance of the issue, the City Council supported
Surfrider and Coastkeeper and, for the first time ever, voted to overrule the Mayor’s veto. The fact that the City Council did not succumb
to the political pressure of the Mayor’s office represented an extremely important corollary victory for the environmental community.
Meanwhile, the IPR demonstration project, studies, and outreach programs are now well underway. As a result of this decision, the
community at large will now be educated on the environmental impacts of the various water supply options and the related benefits or
detriments to the marine environment.
Decision making body: San Diego City Council
How the victory benefits the environment or improves access: IPR is a local sustainable water source for the region, and is much
less energy intensive than the other water supply options. Furthermore, the more water that is reclaimed for IPR purposes results in a
reduction of effluent being discharged into the ocean.
Partner organization: San Diego Coastkeeper
Click Here for the City of San Diego Water Reuse Study
Victory! City of San Diego Urban Runoff Management: Restrictions on Residential Over-Watering
Date: January 22nd, 2008
While significant strides have been made in recent years to control urban runoff from construction sites and industrial
facilities, commercial and residential polluters have been too often overlooked. In particular, municipalities have been
reluctant to require individual homeowners to abate the clearly wasteful practice of irrigation over-watering, despite the
negative impacts to water supply and the fact that runoff from lawns and gardens consistently transmit bacteria, nutrient,
and pesticide wastes to sensitive water bodies throughout the region.
On January 22, 2208, at the request of the Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper, an ordinance prohibiting residential
over-watering ordinance was added to San Diego’s Jurisdictional Urban Run-off Management Plan (JURMP). Each city has to establish
a JURMP to comply with the regional Municipal Stormwater Permit and the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). Securing this addition
prohibition was monumental in that it sends a message to the entire region that we can no longer allow wasteful and polluting
practices, regardless of whether they arise from businesses or private homes.
Decision making body: San Diego City Council
How the victory benefits the environment: A reduction in over-watering will lead to less urban-runoff
during dry weather, and less urban-runoff means cleaner oceans, waves, and beaches!
Partner organization: San Diego Coastkeeper
Victory! San Diego Regional Municipal Stormwater Permit
Date: January 2007
The San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation worked in coalition with the San Diego Bay Council to support the passage of
the San Diego region’s 2007 Municipal Stormwater Permit. This permit spells out the stormwater control requirements applicable
to all of the region’s cities, the County of San Diego, the San Diego Unified Port District, and the San Diego Regional Airport
Authority.
Building on prior litigation victories defending earlier iterations of the stormwater permit, Surfrider and its partners were
successful in strengthening various controls on construction, industrial, municipal, commercial, and residential urban runoff
discharges. Of particular interest to Surfrider, the new permit contains a requirement that local jurisdictions develop comprehensive
regulations for Low Impact Development (LID) and runoff-sensitive site design standards. Such provisions will ensure that the problems
of increased impervious surface cover and unsustainable changes to watershed hydrology will not continue. With most new development
now required to accommodate historic water infiltration and flow regimes, Surfrider can turn its attention to enforcement of runoff
standards and mechanisms to require retrofitting of existing development.
Decision making body: San Diego City Council
How the victory benefits the environment: Stricter stormwater permits translate into cleaner water. Low Impact Development
and Best Management Practices are both ways we are trying to fight urban runoff proactively.
Partner organizations: San Diego Bay Council (San Diego Coastkeeper, Environmental Health Coalition, San Diego Audubon
Society, Sierra Club San Diego Chapter)
Victory! Surfrider Foundation v. City of Solana Beach - Seawalls
Date: November 2007
In its first lawsuit against the City of Solana Beach in 2001 for improperly permitting a seawall without considering the full
range of impacts from such developments, the Surfrider Foundation set an important precedent. For the first time, the City was
forced to recognize that seawalls impede the natural process of beach erosion. Basically, the Court’s agreed that construction
of a seawall on an eroding coastline meant that, eventually, the beach in front of the wall would disappear.
In response to this landmark decision, Solana Beach embarked on a multi-year process to comprehensively address beach and bluff
erosion issues. Unfortunately, the result of this process was a horribly skewed environmental review which foresaw the ultimate
walling-off of the entire City, with no alternative considered feasible, and virtually no mitigation required. Given the very
reasonable long term “managed retreat” plan offered by Surfrider and its local partner, CalBeach Advocates, Surfrider had no
option but to sue again, which it did in 2004.
Despite winning a significant lower court victory in the action, Surfrider appealed portions of the decision that would have
essentially allowed the City to continue in many of its old ways. Specifically, the City had a pattern and practice of allowing
bluff top home owners to wait until dire conditions evolved below their homes, thus rendering seawall requests as “emergencies”
which exempted the projects from full environmental review. As a result, the seawalls would continue to proliferate without
public disclosure of their impacts or sufficient mitigation exacted.
While Surfrider’s lawsuit was pending, representatives of CalBeach Advocates (in consultation with Surfrider), the general
community, and bluff top home owners got together and worked out a compromise solution. The general framework of the compromise
would allow the construction of seawalls where necessary, provide for significant payment of mitigation dollars to compensate for
lost beach recreational and natural resource value, and most importantly, would result in the removal of seawalls at the end of
the economic life of the structures they were designed to protect (typically 75 years). These policies, to be embodied in a new
comprehensive Local Coastal Program would provide one of the most detailed planned retreat policies affecting existing structures
anywhere along the California coast.
Finally, all of the bluff top home owners will be put on notice that all of the bluffs in Solana Beach are eroding, thus it can
no longer be claimed that threats to homes are unforeseeable, and thus constitute emergencies warranting the ability to forego
environmental review.
Decision making body: Solana Beach City Council
How the victory benefits the environment: By formalizing a new permitting process in Solana Beach, including numerous policies
recognizing and reacting to the realities of coastal erosion, protective structures erected on public beaches to protect private
property will no longer be subsidized by the general public. The erosion of the bluffs is necessary for beach creation, and now a price
will be paid by seawall builders for halting natural processes for decades to come. While in the short term, there may be little change
to the way Solana Beach’s highly seawalled coastline looks, in the long term, the beach should be restored.
Partner organization: Cal Beach Advocates
Click Here for a list of Surfrider Victories throughout the country.
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