Army Corps of Engineers sued for non-permitted dredging of LA River

Local water regulators filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, alleging the agency has not adhered to requirements of the Clean Water Act. It’s the latest development in a years-long battle over how the Army Corps conducts dredging operations on the Los Angeles River.

The suit cites two instances of dredging that occurred between 2011 and 2012 on locations within the Glendale Narrows and Sepulveda Basin. It alleges the Corps failed to obtain proper permits from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

An official with the board said the suit is aimed at ensuring the Corps properly notifies regulators before conducting non-emergency maintenance that could result in negative impacts to water quality.

“Our concern here is the Corps has basically unabashedly stated that they will continue to engage in this type of behavior in the future, so we’re really looking at future relief, which is something that is required under the type of action that we’re bringing,” said Cris Carrigan, director of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Office of Enforcement.

A spokesman for the Army Corps said the agency had not yet seen the lawsuit as of Thursday afternoon but in general does not comment on litigation. He did say, however, that certain exemptions in the Clean Water Act allow for dredging without permits.

“Section 404 of the Clean Water Act contains an exemption for maintenance activities, such as our routine maintenance of Verdugo Wash and Sepulveda Basin, where we remove sediment and vegetation from engineered, concrete-lined structures currently serving flood management purposes,” wrote Jay Field, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Carrigan said the board would have worked with the Army Corps to ensure work on the river was performed properly.

“We would’ve allowed the work. We would’ve just had them do it under certain conditions to protect or minimize the kind of impacts that we saw in Sepulveda Basin,” Carrigan said.

The disagreement has been brewing for years. In early 2013, the board issued a letter of intent to the Army Corps stating it would seek legal relief if conditions were not met. Carrigan said the board had been trying to work out a solution outside of court but that it became necessary to bring the matter before a federal judge.

“It is the only way that we can get relief from the Corps. We’ve tried to work with them and negotiate with them over the last several years to get them to provide notice of when they were going to work in waters of the United States in a non-emergency basis. And they’ve steadfastly refused to do that,” Carrigan said.

In the meantime, dredging appears to continue regularly. Kris Ohlenkamp, a member of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society who birds in the area around the Sepulveda Basin, said he has seen dredging activities occur each year. He said the most recent occurrence happened in December.

 “They had, what I call, bulldozers in there, moving the dirt around and removing all the vegetation in that section of the river, down to bare dirt and only left partial bare dirt on the ground,” Ohlenkamp said.

Before and after comparisons of the Sepulveda Basin