The development of the City’s Water Quality Compliance Master Plan for Urban Runoff (WQCMPUR) began in early 2007 with the full involvement of the City and our community stakeholders. Three workshops were attended by committed and concerned citizens and organizations from City departments, council districts, environmental organizations, regulators and other government agencies in the area.

Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels closes the workshop by thanking stakeholder participants.

The WQCMPUR provides a description of the Los Angeles watersheds, the concerns about the quality of urban runoff, the ongoing City efforts to address those concerns, a strategy for future urban runoff management over the next 20 to 30 years, and a financial plan to support this strategy. The primary goal is to meet water quality regulations.
“Implementation of the WQCMPUR will lead to clean rivers, lakes, beaches and bays, increased local groundwater supplies, and greener communities,” says Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay.

Workshops to help develop the WQCMPUR were held at the Los Angeles River Center and were attended by approximately 100 stakeholders. Objectives of the meetings included informing the stakeholders of the ongoing progress of the WQCMPUR and receiving their input during development. Much of the participants’ suggestions have found their way into the final documents.

“It was great to see City staff involved in all stages of the plan’s development,” says Paul Herzog, an independent environmental consultant who participated in the stakeholder meetings. “My hope is that the relationships established during the process continue to grow once projects and programs get rolling. The sense of partnerships that have developed won’t be there down the road if non-profits and consultants don’t continue to have a voice.”

The first workshop held in June 2007 laid out the scope and development of the WQCMPUR and provided a forum for stakeholder discussion on the next steps. During the second session in August 2007, the audience broke up into four groups to make suggestions on how to improve the City’s runoff management.

During the third and final workshop held in December 2007, the Public Review Draft of the Plan was presented and handed out to all the attending stakeholders with a request for their comments and suggestions. Final comments and recommendations were provided by the Mayor’s Office, Council Districts 1 and 11, the Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst, the Board of Public Works, and the Bureau of Sanitation. All comments are being incorporated into the document. The final WQCMPUR will be scheduled for Los Angeles City Council approval in early 2009.

"The stakeholder workshops were very productive and provided a wealth of ideas and suggestions,” says Stormwater Program Manager Shahram Kharaghani. “Many of those suggestions can be found in the WQCMPUR. This document can truly be seen as a citywide document, one that we will use to guide our work for the next 30 years." 

WQCMPUR documents will soon be available to everyone via the Stormwater program’s website at LAstormwater.org.

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