San Diego Coastkeeper

Law & Policy Clinic Campaigns

Caltrans

San Diego Coastkeeper reached a consent decree in December 1997 with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) that forced the agency to reduce the toxic stormwater that flows untreated from 11 highways and construction sites into San Diego (District 11) watersheds.

San Diego Coastkeeper brought the suit against Caltrans, which had no stormwater permit for their District 11 activities, after Santa Monica Baykeeper prevailed in litigation against the agency in District 7. The D11 agreement requires Caltrans to undertake annual cleaning of their 15,000 storm drains in San Diego and to underwrite a $2.5M pilot project aimed at designing and implementing pollution control devices that will improve highway drainage systems that previously had funneled toxic runoff into sensitive lagoons. BMPs include: wet and dry basins and trenches, filters, etc.

As part of this agreement, San Diego Coastkeeper also required the implementation of a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) that calls for Caltrans to restore illegally filled wetlands in the Tijuana National Estuary, and restore this parcel as a functioning wetland and nesting area for the endangered clapper rail.

Although Coastkeeper thought that it would be overseeing the Consent Decree until late 2001, presently there are issues of noncompliance with certain aspects of the retrofit program, particularly the failure of a pilot BMP infiltration basin at La Costa which resulted from improper siting. Coastkeeper continues working with the U.S. EPA, NRDC and Santa Monica Baykeeper to oversee our settlement with Caltrans over stormwater discharges, and to ensure the accuracy of Caltrans' final project report that assesses the effectiveness of the agency's improved Best Management Practices (BMPs) in San Diego and Los Angeles. The parties will be meeting in mid-2004 to hopefully remedy shortfalls in the report.