Coming to a City near you

Folks..its here...Time to pay the piper. Long Beach is just now realizing it. Read more here at LBReport.com. When will your city realize it? This year? Next year? You voted for these idiots (or failed to vote them out) and once behind closed doors they start shelling out pensions, perks and pay raises. Are you going to let them get ways with it? Orange County is not. John Moorlach is leading the charge. Read more here. But in the Socialist Republic Nanny State that is LA county we have no leaders with the guts to stand up to public labor unions, especially After Arnie's little run in with them last year in the fake proposition failure.


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Perchlorate hearings delayed

Marchers Label Polluters ‘Public Enemy #1'
Thursday, 23 August 2007
RIALTO
http://www.blackvoicenews.com/content/view/41190/4/

By Chris Levister

Braving the scorching heat, dozens of angry residents and members of the Riverside-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice marched and rallied down Foothill Boulevard Tuesday demanding that polluters clean up water contamination.

Tuesday was supposed to be the first day of state hearings to determine if three companies should have to clean the chemical perchlorate from drinking water wells that serve thousands of Rialto and Colton residents. On Friday the group learned a Los Angeles judge issued a temporary stay to stop the hearings - thus postponing the proceedings - for the fifth time.

"We are shocked and alarmed that addressing this environmental disaster has been delayed through legal tactics by these polluters," said Jan Misquez, staff member of CCAEJ.

For nearly three years the group has been working to raise awareness on the issue of groundwater contamination by Goodrich, Black and Decker and PyroSpectacular.

The companies accused of the contamination all operated on the 160-acre industrial site used since World War II on the north end of the city.

"The state's inability to get these hearings off the starting block, leave us wondering who is protecting us? Who can we count on to protect our families?" said CCAEJ executive director Penny Newman.

Newman called the polluters "environmental terrorists" and called on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to assemble a task force to order the companies to clean up the mess.

"Justice delayed is justice denied. What do we want - clean water now," protesters chanted in English and Spanish.

The show of blue and white placards demanding clean up was dotted with WANTED posters embossed with photographs of the heads of the three companies accused of being responsible for the pollution. The signs labeled them "Public Enemy #1."

Newman lamented that with each postponement the plume of chemicals flowing south toward Colton and west toward Fontana endangers thousands of families. She said Rialto residents have paid $10 million in perchlorate surcharges since 2004.

Perchlorate is used in the production of explosives, including rocket fuel and fireworks. The chemical affects the thyroid gland, which controls growth, development and metabolism.

Rialto estimates it will cost $300 million to clean up the pollution. Perchlorate was discovered in the city's water supply in 1997. Newman said the latest postponement of 62 days will cause the city to lose another 800 million gallons of fresh drinking water.

"If necessary we will take this protest to Sacramento and beyond. We've got an environmental disaster on our hands. You can expect to see more pressure on elected officials."

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

laser show will replace the fireworks show due to perchlorate risks

People are starting to see the connection. When will congress which has two Perchlorate bills pending, both sponsored by Calif Senators Feinstein and Boxer, see the connection?

Novato drops Labor Day fireworks after concerns over water contamination

Joe Wolfcale
Marin Independent Journal
Article Launched:08/22/2007 06:03:19 PM PDT
http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_6691972

Novato officials have canceled the fireworks display at the annual Labor Day at the Lake celebration because a chemical that contaminates drinking water was found in lake water after last year's event.

Water samples from Stafford Lake taken after last year's pyrotechnics showed a trace amount of perchlorate, a chemical dangerous for human consumption.

Water district officials believe the source of the perchlorate was an unexploded shell or shell casing that contaminated water in one area of the lake. City officials said, however, the contaminant level was so small it did not pose a danger to humans or require official notification to state agencies that monitor water systems.

A three-dimensional laser show will replace the fireworks show.

"We can't have that in our water supply, so it's a big concern for the water district," Novato City Manager Dan Keen said. "We had discussions right after the event last year and we just didn't have the comfort level we all wanted to have to proceed. I've seen a preview of the laser show, so it should be pretty interesting.

"We'll still have plenty of kid-friendly stuff."

Nearly 5,000 people attended last year's celebration. To date, the event has raised $180,000, with the proceeds benefiting the Novato Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department scholarship fund, Division Manager Katy Graves said.

"The fireworks was such a big draw for the event, we didn't want to lose it," Graves said. "We're really looking forward to the laser show and think it will be one of the first and biggest in the county."

Subsequent samples of Stafford Lake water showed no trace of the chemical. Water officials tested Stafford Lake after each fireworks show but found a high level of perchlorate only after last year's event, according to a Jan. 12 memorandum from Pablo Ramudo, water quality supervisor for the North Marin Water District.

Perchlorate breaks down slowly in the environment and is used primarily as a component of solid propellant rockets, missiles and fireworks. About 20 percent of Novato's drinking water comes from Stafford Lake; the rest comes from the Russian River.

"Our mission is to provide good quality water and we can't let entertainment get in the way of that," said David Bentley, acting general manager for the North Marin Water District.

"There are perchlorate-free fireworks made, but this is such an important matter, we didn't want to take any chances," Keen said.

Read more Novato stories at the IJ's Novato page.

Contact Joe Wolfcale via e-mail at jwolfcale@marinij.com

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Fireworks and air pollution

Wildfires causing Valley air pollution
Regulators alert citizens with respiratory problems
FROM STAFF REPORTS
Article Last Updated: 08/16/2007 02:36:07 AM PDT
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_6637383

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District has issued a cautionary warning for much of the San Joaquin Valley due to two fires in southern California.

The fires — the Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County and the Tar Canyon fire in Fresno County — have spiked particulate levels to 55 micrograms per cubic meter in Bakersfield, or 20 micrograms above the federally accepted level, said Brenda Turner, a spokeswoman with the air district.

Though those closer to the fires have more to be worried about, residents in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties with respiratory problems, such as lung disease or asthma, or heart disease may want to stay indoors if they smell smoke, Turner said.

The immediate threat is small, but heavy winds could send smoke farther north.

To put particulate levels in perspective, fires in a fireplace also elevate the air to about 55 micrograms per cubic meter, Turner said. Fireworks raise the air to extremely high particulate levels. Modesto's fireworks boosted levels to 302 micrograms per cubic meter in July 2006.

However, particulate readings are averaged over a 24-hour period, and levels hit the 55 mark only once Wednesday.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Let the voters do what politician are too afraid to do

Once again the initiative system has to step in as pandering politicians wont do the heavy lifting. Why do we even bother with Sacramento? Lets just have initiatives all year long. Clearly they have lost the ability to govern and only do what the public employee unions want or threaten. Man are they going to get a wake up call when all these dumb ass taxpayers realize what lucrative pensions they are funding for these public employees (who retire at 50) while eeking out an existence on social security at 65 (their private job pension having been blown out years ago by mergers). WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Let people decide on public pensions
BY MARYLEE SHRIDER, contributing columnist | Friday, Aug 17 2007 7:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 17 2007 9:51 PM

Public employee unions and the elected officials who cozy up to them have, for years, denied the growing crisis that is California's ponderous pension system.

It's a system that may yet break taxpayers' backs, but few in Sacramento are willing to stand up to union leaders who insist that plush pensions are their due.

So private citizens will have to do it for them.

One of those citizens was in Bakersfield last week with the good news that voting taxpayers may soon have the chance to take public pay matters into their own hands.

Keith Richman, a former 38th Districtassemblyman, R-Grenada Hills, who termed out last year, then helped form the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, said the foundation's sole purpose is to tackle the skyrocketing costs of public employee retirements.

During a speech before an appreciative lunchtime crowd at the Great Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, Richman said the foundation's pension reform measure, which he hopes to see on the ballot in 2008, promises to check the spiraling costs of retiree benefits.

"If we don't there may be some government entities that go bankrupt and those that don't are going to die from a thousand cuts in services," Richman said. "Because of the strength of the public employee unions as a special interest group in California, I don't have any confidence at all Sacramento will address this issue."

The controversy started to swell in the late 1990s, when pension funds were making big investment gains in a booming economy. When that bubble burst early this decade, critics began to sound the alarm that lawmakers would soon be scraping to find the billions necessary to cover government workers' pension benefits.

They're remarkably generous benefits that I, as the wife of a retired city police officer, am well and gratefully acquainted with. So, unlike union leaders who continue to clamor for more and better benefits while dismissing the state's pension problem as wildly overblown, I can affirm that state, county and city employees -- particularly police officers, firefighters and prison guards -- enjoy some of the most lucrative wage and retirement benefits in the country.

It's time, said Richman, to "stop digging the hole deeper" and create a fair retirement benefit for new employees who complete a full career's work. That plan, as spelled out in the initiative, includes raising the retirement age for police officers and firefighters to 55; to age 60 for other public safety employees and to Social Security retirement age, 65 to 67-- for all others.

That step alone will save billions, Richman said.

"The 10 more years they'll be paying in gives the capital 10 more years to accumulate," he said. "The estimates for the changes we propose in the initiative are that the savings would be about $500 billion over the next 30 years -- more than enough to pay for the unfunded liability we've already accrued."

City Councilman Zack Scrivner, who has been accused by some in the media and undoubtedly at local union meetings of "demonizing" the public pension problem, said the issue is no longer what public employees deserve, but what the taxpayer can afford.

"What Richman is doing is looking at political reality," Scrivner said. "I am perfectly willing to accept the challenge to make any necessary changes locally, but the fix ultimately needs to happen on a statewide level. Because elected officials are not willing to take that stand, this unfortunately is a problem that will have to be solved by a vote of the people."

Leave it to the people -- a good idea that's long overdue.

To read the text of the CFFR's Public Employees Benefits Reform Act visit http://californiapensionreform.com/initiative.htm.

Marylee Shrider's column appears on Saturdays. Reach her at 395-7474 or mshrider@bakersfield.com.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The Summer 2007 California budget fiasco

Bush is the worst thing to have happened to the republican party in 50 years. He cant control spending (what Republicans used to be known for), he has this little "war on terror" thing going in Iraq (and elsewhere) which has cost a few dollars and lives and then there are the scandals (too many to name) that go along with being the party in control of congress and the white house for years Then there is the Stem Cell ideology (and related far right propaganda) that turns off main stream Republicans. But at the state and local level we need fiscal conservatives, regardless of what you label them (Dems or Republicans, or Independents). Unfortunately when all is done in Nov. 08 the Dems will control the Whitehouse and the Congress, the tab will come due on Iraq, healthcare, pensions etc. and the Dems will kill anyone making more than 60k a year with taxes. Just remember one thing. The "Republicans" in the Ca legislature are the only ones holding their finger in the dyke holding back a flood of spending. Dont confuse them with "Bush's party". Read more on the budget fiasco (and "driveby media" lies) here

GOP holdouts are on our side

By: North County Times Opinion staff

Our view: Republican senators block budget for state's fiscal future, traffic relief

Despite what you may have heard, Republican state Senators aren't blocking the door to a budget deal out of petulance or to score petty political points. Nor are they needlessly and recklessly jeopardizing the fortunes, finances and fates of all those relying on reimbursement from the state. Nor, for that matter, are 13 GOP senators holding up a long-overdue budget compromise so they can gut California's environmental laws.

The baker's dozen holdouts -- including the local state senators, Mark Wyland, R-Carlsbad, and Dennis Hollingsworth, R-El Cajon, who visited our editorial board Wednesday
audio (listen here) -- are taking a principled, critical stand on behalf of a balanced budget and traffic relief North County desperately needs.

In fact, these recalcitrant Republicans may not be going far enough: The "balanced" budget they are holding out for won't be balanced by any standard acceptable anywhere outside of Sacramento, not without factoring in the massive unfunded liabilities hovering over California's fiscal future like a sword of Damocles.

For too long, enough Republican legislators have acquiesced to the Democrats and Gov. Schwarzenegger's bloated budget demands. This year, finally, every senate Republican save one has drawn a line in the sand against deficits that our state can no longer afford even to slough off on our grandchildren.

A quirk of our state constitution enables a minority party to block the budget, requiring a two-thirds vote for approval. Although Democrats enjoy a majority in both houses, they can't pass next year's budget without the votes of eight Republican Assembly members and two Republican senators.

Holding fast to a demand that $700 million be cut from the budget, Ackerman's 13 -- the holdout senate Republicans led by Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Tustin -- have succeeded in delaying a budget deal long past the July 1 deadline, and long after enough Assembly Republicans approved that chamber's budget deal for it to pass on July 20.

Ackerman's 13 have been accused of not taking "yes" for an answer, especially after Schwarzenegger vowed to use his blue-pencil power to trim $700 million from the Assembly-approved budget and balance next year's operating budget.

They may need to swallow hard and approve a budget under these less-than-ideal conditions. While the coming storm of unfunded health care and pension liabilities owed to state employees darkens California's fiscal horizons, we'd settle this year for a budget that at least begins to regain its balance.

But the senate GOP holdouts have also been accused of tying up the budget with ancillary issues, such as their demand that the state's still-fuzzy greenhouse-gas goals not delay the distribution of transportation funds. But the holdouts are right here, too: This isn't a trivial matter, and the billions of dollars we approved in bonds last November are part of this year's budget process.

Republicans argue that Attorney General Jerry Brown is threatening a speedy disbursement of transportation funding by insisting that California's counties account for greenhouse-gas emissions in their planning processes. Brown wants to use the California Environmental Quality Act to enforce last year's ambitious Assembly Bill 32, the "greenhouse gas bill" that aims to reduce such emissions 25 percent by 2020.

We support that goal, but we question Brown's strategy, and we're not alone. Even the head of the California Air Resources Board, the agency that is clearly mandated to implement the greenhouse gas law, has fretted that Brown's meddling could actually result in lax regulations.

Republicans are right to warn that Brown's grab for headlines and power will lead to lawsuits that delay long-overdue transportation projects. Those greenhouse-gas goals won't even be spelled out until 2012, far too long to wait for traffic relief. It's as if Brown wants to continue the crusade that he started as governor against the roads and highway improvements our growing state needs now more than ever.

Californians, especially North County commuters, must oppose this ill-considered effort, which would also hurt the environment Brown purports to defend. After all, traffic-caused smog is one of our greatest threats to human and environmental health.

Democrats could have approved stop-gap funding to pay state bills during the budget impasse. Instead, they went on a three-week vacation. When they return to their jobs, we hope they return to Republican lawmakers who continue to represent our interests, as unpopular and underappreciated as their stand may be.

Useful links:

Information about California's unfunded liabilities

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/ret_health_val/ret_health_val_050907.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/retireehealth/RetFAQ.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2007/general_govt/gen_22_anl07.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2007/general_govt/gen_12_1920_anl07.aspx

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2007/ret_health_val/ret_health_val_050907.aspx

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/5012/

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The Public Employee Benefits Reform Act (2007)

1262. (07-0024) Reduces Public Pension and Retirement Health Care Benefits. Constitutional Amendment.

Summary Date: 8/13/07 Circulation Deadline: 1/10/08 Signatures Required: 694,354

Proponent: Keith Richman, John Moorlach, and Kris Hunt c/o Thomas W. Hiltachk (916) 442-7757

For peace officers, firefighters, public safety, and other public employees hired after July 1, 2009, this measure: reduces pension and retirement health care benefits; increases minimum retirement age; restricts early retirement; increases minimum age and years of employment needed to qualify for retirement health care benefits; and limits post-retirement pension increases. For all public employees this measure: prohibits retroactive increases in retirement benefits; requires public employers to make annual payments to fund future benefit costs; and allows public employers to adjust retirement contribution rates in future labor agreements. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Major reductions in annual pension contribution costs for employees hired on or after July 1, 2009, offset to an unknown extent by increases in costs for other forms of public employee compensation. Major short-term increase in annual governmental payments to prefund retiree health benefits, more than offset in the long run by annual reductions in these costs. (Initiative 07-0024.) click here to read full text of initiative

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The misconceptions continue....

Well the writer below has one thing right. The public sector pension are MUCH more lucrative than anything in the public sector but he is misguided an a number of other points:

1. Public employees are generally paid more than private sector employees even when pensions are not figured in;
2. in addition they generally work less hours per year (for similar pay) than privates sector employees (which raises their real dollar per hour wage)
3. they have much better healthcare and vacation accrual plans (and they really get to take the vacations)
4. they essentially cannot be fired or laid off either due to union or civil service rules of union rules or both;
5. Most public sector jobs are not very difficult. Most are just office jobs or low stress low danger jobs.
6. As far as firefighter and police jobs being dangerous Mr. Mysak better familiarize himself with our related story on that issue here.

California Draws Line on Public Employee Pensions: Joe Mysak

By Joe Mysak

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Roll back those pensions! Give back those sweeteners!

This may be the latest new idea in public finance to blow in from the West if Orange County, California, Supervisor John Moorlach has anything to say about it.

Tax-cap fever and the crazy-quilt creation of special tax assessment districts are just two of the modern-day contributions California has made to the world of public finance.

Next up: Nuclear war between those who get public pensions and those who don't.

Those are the words -- ``nuclear war'' -- used by Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, commenting on a plan by the county's supervisors to challenge a pension increase given to sheriff's deputies in 2001.

The plan to challenge the retroactive increase was approved by county supervisors on July 31. Supervisor Moorlach said the increase was unconstitutional because it created an unfunded liability without voter approval, and might bankrupt the county.

Moorlach knows something about municipal bankruptcy. He was the critic who warned that Orange County's investments in derivative securities were unwise. He ran for the office of treasurer and tax collector in 1994 and lost to popular incumbent Robert Citron. In December of that year, the county became the biggest municipal bankruptcy case ever after its investments tanked. Moorlach was appointed to fill out Citron's term in March 1995, and won re-election twice before being elected a supervisor last year.

Everyone's Watching

Everyone in California is going to be watching the county, and if it prevails in court, because so many state and local agencies did the same thing when it looked like pension funds were awash in cash.

What the county did in 2001 was to approve a plan to allow sheriff's deputies to retire at age 50 with 3 percent of their peak year of pay, multiplied by the number of years they served. This was a 50 percent raise above the previous plan, which allowed them to retire at 50 with 2 percent. The new plan took effect in 2002.

For example, a deputy retiring after 25 years at age 50 with a $143,955 salary would get a pension of $71,978 under the 2 percent plan, and $107,966 under the 3 percent plan, Moorlach pointed out in his presentation.

Moorlach says the increase is unconstitutional, because it created a new liability, one not approved by the voters and one that created an immediate shortfall because no money had been set aside to pay for it. He wants the increase to be rescinded, or for the deputies to chip in and help pay for it.

21st Century Problem

If the county prevails, and that's a big ``if,'' states and localities across the nation will probably start looking at how they, too, might roll back what are now being seen as overly generous pension benefits granted to government workers.

Public pensions are a 21st-century problem. Nobody really gave them much thought before now. Decades ago, few people begrudged police or firefighters, people who put their lives on the line every day, full pensions with benefits.

Even as the size of state and local government grew, few people felt envious of those civil servants who weren't in the line of fire, those with clerical jobs or those in the parks department or the department of sanitation, for example, who received similar retirement packages.

Everyone knew that in exchange for salaries that were somewhat lower than those on offer from private companies, people who worked for government got nice retirement benefits.

Nobody really thought about those benefits until recently, until about the time private companies started doing away with their own pension and benefit plans, replacing them with limited contributions and making most employees responsible for saving for their own retirements.

Union Battle

So now everybody is looking at public employees' pensions, and wondering if we, the taxpayers, can afford them.

We're looking at them because of envy. We're looking at them because our elected representatives seem to have juiced some of those plans up considerably while we weren't looking.

And we're looking at public-employee pensions because it looks like our elected representatives haven't put enough aside to pay for those liabilities, stinting on annual contributions and otherwise not planning ahead. The bill is coming due as surely as all those baby boomers reach retirement age.

And now, thanks to a new rule from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, we have something else to worry about -- not just pensions, but those so-called other post- employment benefits, chiefly health care, promised to public employees. States and localities are in the process of tallying those, and the final figure just for those benefits might be $1 trillion-plus.

Until now, those costs were usually paid for on a pay-as- you-go basis; GASB wants municipal governments to calculate about how much they promised, and include the figure in their financial statements. Surprise!

Welcome to the next union war.

To contact the writer of this column: Joe Mysak in New York at jmysakjr@bloomberg.net


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

The charade continues...

Well the information is in. The Bureau of Labor statistics just released its most dangerous occupations list for 2006. And guess what (big surprise) firefighters and law enforcement are not even in the top 20 (have not been for years). So the next time a cop or fireman tells you their job is dangerous and that the big pay scale for only a High School diploma is justified and they need to retire at 50 (at 100% of their highest years pay) just give them this study published by their government pals over at the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Just look at a summary of the report above in the two charts below from the report (click on the charts to enlarge them):





Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

Big mystery solved

We'll say it again: Cars parked on the street during weekly (hopefully) street sweeping prevents the sweeper from clearing out the nasty stuff in the gutter that contributes to bacteria in the summer time runoff. Long Beach is just now starting to figure this out. When will they figure out that Lakewood (and other cities) are polluting the water in the San Gabriel River due to lousy street sweeping practices? LAAG could have figured this out for free.

Making waves
Long Beach is getting to the bottom of polluted beaches.
Article Launched: 08/08/2007 09:34:37 PM PDT

Long Beach Assistant City Manager Christine Shippey and health and water experts met with the editorial board earlier this week and delivered cautiously optimistic news: The city and county may have pinpointed some of the major sources of bacteria polluting Alamitos Bay.

This is potentially promising information about some of the city's most-polluted waters. Alamitos Bay bacteria levels have routinely exceeded state standards, leading the National Resources Defense Council and Heal the Bay to label some city beaches among the worst in the region.

One of the key sources of bacteria is now believed to be the Alamitos Bay Pump Station, which has been sending untreated storm water into the bay near the Leeway Sailing Center. Another pump station near the Bay Shore Avenue bridge at Second Street was also believed to be feeding runoff into the bay.

Storm pumps are not designed to treat water, only divert it to prevent flooding, which is not usually an issue in summer. But urban runoff and other sources that were supposed to be diverted were building up in the pipes and causing the county-owned pumps to kick in and do their jobs.

The water, which largely came from Long Beach-area sources, was circulating
throughout the Bay and over to Mother's and Bay Shore beaches. City health officials said in a follow-up interview that the pipes normally contain high levels of bacteria, which could be an additional source along with runoff.

Working with the county sanitation district, Supervisor Don Knabe and 3rd District Councilman Gary DeLong, the city and county diverted the waters into the storm drain system. A test this week showed Alamitos Bay water within state standards, but health officials are not ready to proclaim victory because they want to see a pattern of improvement. Water, as per state standards and funding levels, is tested weekly, not daily.

Other potential sources of pollution have also been investigated. The city has sent divers to examine boats for leaky lines and also looked at beach restrooms, illegal dumping and other likely sources. Shippey likens the effort to detective work and said the sleuthing will continue.

When asked about the breakwater's role in pollution, Shippey said the city doesn't yet know its impact on water quality, but the City Council has funded what is believed to be the first in a series of tests that may lead to answers. Another city official said the breakwater would not likely impact bacteria levels - only one type of pollution - in Alamitos Bay, but could play a role on other city beaches.

One could assume that wave action would cleanse the entire area, but that is not always the case. Water quality in sections of Huntington Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu - all places with sizeable waves - has been abysmal at times. That said, we believe that studies of the breakwater should go forward.

Other big sources of Long Beach pollution are better known, particularly runoff from the Los Angeles River, which snakes through 50 miles of concrete before emptying pollutants into the Long Beach harbor. There are also drought-like conditions that allow pollutants to build up on streets and sidewalks, animal waste and people hosing - instead of sweeping - their driveways.

One thing is clear: There are multiple sources of pollution, and the city isn't ruling out anything. The council recently created a task force to study water quality and ways to solve the problems.

For now, it looks like one major leak has been plugged.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™