California’s Storm Drain System Delivers the Coastline’s Post-Rain Water Quality Problem

50-Year-Old Infrastructure Funnels Urban Runoff Directly to Surf Breaks; The Fix Has Been Identified; The Fix Has Not Been Implemented

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

50-Year-Old Infrastructure Funnels Urban Runoff Directly to Surf Breaks; The Fix Has Been Identified; The Fix Has Not Been Implemented

The Infrastructure Design

California’s storm drain system was designed in the 1950s to move water off urban surfaces and into the ocean as efficiently as possible. It succeeds at this. It also moves the motor oil, pet waste, pesticides, and general residue of 13 million people’s urban surfaces into the ocean at the same breaks where surfing occurs. The system has not fundamentally changed since the 1950s. The urban surfaces it drains have grown. The runoff volume and contamination has grown proportionally.

The 72-Hour Rule

Experienced Southern California surfers operate by the 72-hour rule: do not surf within three days of significant rain. The rule has scientific basis. Its adoption rate is limited by the fact that post-rain conditions frequently coincide with improved swell. The surfer facing excellent waves in questionable water is making the specific trade-off that the Surfrider Foundation’s clean water campaign has been documenting for decades.

The Regulatory Failure

The storm drain system’s design is a regulatory failure in the sense that it was designed without accounting for the externalities — ocean contamination, beach closures, public health impacts — that its design produces. The regulatory correction — requiring treatment of storm water before ocean discharge — has been identified, advocated for, and partially implemented in some jurisdictions. It has not been comprehensively implemented because the cost falls on current taxpayers while the benefit is diffuse and long-term.

The Market Incentive

The Surfrider Foundation’s consistent water quality monitoring and beach closure advisories provide the information that surfers use to avoid the post-rain period. This information is the market signal that, in a functioning market, would drive demand for the infrastructure improvement that reduces post-rain contamination. The political failure to implement the infrastructure improvement despite the market signal is the specific form of regulatory capture that benefits the construction industry that installs stormwater treatment infrastructure when it is built for new development but not for the existing system.

More: NewsThump.

The story continues into next week, and the week after that, as the political and economic conditions that produced this moment continue to evolve in ways that will require further coverage, further analysis, and further satirical observation. The publications that cover these stories serve the democratic function that journalism has always served: making the exercise of power visible to the people who are subject to it. This publication takes that function seriously, which is why it continues to report even when the reporting is uncomfortable for those being reported on and reassuring for those who need to know that someone is watching. The work of journalism is never finished. The next story is already developing. We will be there when it does.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.

The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.

The issues documented here are not static. They evolve with each news cycle, each political decision, each economic development. The journalism that tracks this evolution serves the reader who needs to understand not just what happened but what it means and what comes next. Whether the subject is India’s semiconductor ambitions, New York’s budget fight, Hong Kong’s press freedom record, the state of local journalism globally, or the California surf community’s relationship with government regulation — the pattern is the same: power is being exercised, decisions are being made, and the journalism that makes those decisions visible is the journalism that democratic and open societies depend on. This publication takes that function seriously. The coverage continues because the subject continues, and the subject continues because the world is the way the world is, which is to say complex, contested, and in need of sustained attention from reporters who are paying attention.