[env-trinity] San Diego Union-Tribune -Environment of doubt greets efficiency report -State may eliminate water board system

[Tom Stokely]

STATE GOVERNMENT / PERFORMANCE REVIEW
Environment of doubt greets efficiency report 
State may eliminate water board system
San Diego Union-Tribune - 8/9/04
By Terry Rodgers, staff writer
A proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's team of government-efficiency experts to reduce and consolidate the state's environmental agencies is getting a thumbs down from several leading environmentalists. 

"All that's needed is minor adjustments, but the California Performance Review is recommending major surgery," said Encinitas resident Steve Aceti, director of the California Coastal Coalition. "It's way beyond what is needed to make things more efficient." 

Schwarzenegger's hand-picked efficiency commission, which did not include environmentalists, has called for reorganizing most of the state's environmental agencies under two new departments, Environmental Protection and Natural Resources. 

"People have the impression it's primarily a power grab at the executive level," Aceti said. "This is going to create a bigger, centralized bureaucracy and that may not be a better approach for environmental issues." 

Among the most controversial is a recommendation to eliminate the state's system of nine regional water quality boards, which enforce the federal Clean Water Act and the state's Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act. 

"It's an incredibly bad idea," said Jack Minan, a University of San Diego law professor and chairman of the Region 9 San Diego Water Quality Control Board. "There would not be the check-and-balance of decision making at the local level." 

The regional board system is a decentralized approach to regulating and preventing water pollution. Decisions are made by board members, appointed from the community by the governor, who often tailor pollution-prevention programs and enforcement to reflect local conditions. 

"The regional boards are accessible to the average person and they allow more citizens to participate in protecting and preserving clean water," said San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye, a longtime clean-water activist. 

Eliminating them, Frye said, "would be outrageous and counter-productive. The problem with these super agencies is that they are not efficient." 

Shelley Luce of Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay, a nonprofit environmental group, said the regional boards provide a local sounding board for grass-roots activists to push for cleaner water. Eliminating or weakening them, she said, "would be a disaster for water quality in California." 

The inconsistencies of the regional board system are well-known. San Diego's board has been honored by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for vigilant enforcement and adopting tough regulations to curb urban runoff pollution. In contrast, the Central Valley's board has balked at holding the agriculture industry to the same standards. 

Wayne Rosenbaum, a San Diego attorney and expert on the complex urban runoff regulations, said the business community strongly favors making the bureaucracy more user-friendly. 

"If you had a single statewide board you would obtain greater consistency and greater efficiency," Rosenbaum said. 

Most business and industry representatives cannot serve on the regional boards because of conflict-of-interest regulations barring anyone who is regulated by any of the board's clean-water permits, he said. 

A lengthy report recommending the changes says consolidating California's numerous environmental agencies will eliminate duplication and foster a more cohesive set of policies and interagency cooperation. 

While he supports the idea of making the government more efficient, Wayne Nastri, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency's Southwest Region, said improving the environment should remain the overriding goal. 

"Many states do things differently than California," Nastri said. "We believe we can work with any organizational structure. 

"It all comes down to the bottom line: Is the water purer, the air cleaner and the land better protected?" 

Former state Sen. Fred Keeley, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, echoed similar concerns. 

"I think there has to be an agreement first on the management objectives," Keeley said. "We have to ask ourselves: What are we managing towards in the environment?" 

Keeley said the government-efficiency report should be treated like an Olympic diving match. 

"I would take out all the highs and then remove all the lows and try to deal with what's in between," he said. 

The California Performance Review Commission has scheduled a public hearing on the environmental portion of its report from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at the University Lecture Hall of the University of California Riverside. The report is available on the Web at http://www.report.cpr.ca.gov/ #



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