TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
John Jalili, Interim City Manager
FROM:
Tony Olmos, Director of Public Works
Raul Saenz, Utilities Manager
SUBJECT:Title
Approve the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District Regarding the Administration and Cost Sharing for Development of the Enhanced Watershed Management Program (EWMP) and the Coordinated Integrated Monitoring Program (CIMP) for the Santa Monica Bay and Dominguez Channel Watersheds to comply with Municipal Stormwater Permit (Permit); and Authorize the City Manager to sign the MOU (Public Works Director Olmos).
APPROVE
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Approve the MOU between the Cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District Regarding the Administration and Cost Sharing for Development of the EWMP and the CIMP for the Santa Monica Bay and Dominguez Channel Watersheds to comply with Permit; and Authorize the City Manager to sign the MOU.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
The City's cost share component of the MOU is $42,585. Funds are budgeted for the Fiscal Year 2013-2014 Public Works Storm Drain Maintenance Budget to carry out Phase 1of the MOU.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Manhattan Beach is pursuing the EWMP implementation option under the Permit in cooperation with the Cities of Redondo Beach, Torrance and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, collectively known as the Beach Cities Watershed Management Group (Group), to jointly fund the development of an EWMP and CIMP.
The Permit establishes the following deadlines for Permittees participating in the development of an EWMP:
June 28, 2013: Submit Notice of Intent - Complete
December 28, 2013: Executed MOU
June 2014: Submittal of EWMP Work Plan and CIMP to Regional Board
June 2015: Submit EWMP to the Regional Board
On June 25, 2013 the City Council approved the Notice of Intent package to comply with the Permit and authorized the City Manager to sign the Notice of Intent letter to the Regional Water Quality Control Board stating that the City of Manhattan Beach intends to collaborate with the Group in the development of an EWMP and a CIMP. The Notice of Intent package included a cost estimate to prepare an EWMP and a CIMP along with a draft MOU setting forth the framework for collaboration among the participating agencies.
The Group met the first compliance milestone under the EWMP to submit signed letters of intent along with a Notice of Intent package of information to the Regional Water Quality Control Board by June 28, 2013.
DISCUSSION:
The Permit requires that the MOU be fully executed by all participating Permittees within 12-months of the December 28, 2012 effective date of the Permit. Therefore the deadline for executing the MOU is December 28, 2013. City staff is seeking Council's approval of the final MOU which has been revised from the draft MOU submitted in June 2013 with the Notice of Intent. The Notice of Intent package submitted on June 28, 2013 included a cost estimate for plan development which was based on the response received to the Group's Request for Proposals for engineering/environmental consulting services sent to seven consulting firms. The scope of work in the Request for Proposals included the explicit permit requirements as well as interim milestones, deliverables and project management services anticipated to be needed to accomplish the work based on template scopes of work developed by the Group. The EWMP will be developed over the course of two fiscal years, FY13-14 and FY14-15, while the CIMP is to be completed by the close of FY13-14.
The consultant's proposal estimated a cost of $760,000 to deliver the scope of work including preparation of the required EWMP Work Plan and CIMP by June 2014 and to complete the EWMP by June 2015 to address the Santa Monica Bay and Dominguez Channel watersheds. Although the proposal did consider previous modeling work that had been done by the Group, the proposal assumed that additional modeling work would need to be done to fully address the technical requirements of the Permit, including the Reasonable Assurance Analysis (RAA). This RAA must use a quantitative water quality model to demonstrate that in areas where retention of the design storm is not feasible, water quality standards would be achieved through implementation of other watershed control measures to be described in the EWMP. The expectation of Regional Water Quality Control Board as to what constitutes RAA is evolving through a technical advisory committee process, which has begun but may not be well defined until EWMP Work Plans are developed to describe the approach used by each watershed management group to develop their respective EWMPs.
Rather than authorize the full scope of work at this time, the final Group MOU bifurcates the effort into two Phases with Phase I comprising the development of the EWMP Work Plan and CIMP. Phase II consists of development of the EWMP in its entirety and this effort would be negotiated with the consultant once the EWMP Work Plan has been prepared and the scope of the EWMP is refined. Additionally, the MOU envisions that the cost allocation formula among the parties to the MOU would be renegotiated based on the outcome of the EWMP Work Planning process and that Exhibit A of the MOU will be revised accordingly.
The City of Redondo Beach has been serving as the lead agency for the Group's work in the Santa Monica Bay watershed to address the Santa Monica Bay Bacteria TMDL. As the lead agency, the City of Redondo Beach manages consultant contracts such as the Michelson Laboratory contract for water quality monitoring and water quality data submission to the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The City of Redondo Beach has agreed to continue to serve as lead agency for development of the EWMP and CIMP. Given the staff time and fiduciary responsibility required based on past experience, Redondo Beach staff have requested a 10% contract administration fee.
Attachment:
1. MOU Between Cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance and the Los Angeles County Flood Control District