What LA County’s new environmental regulations mean for coastal fireworks shows

Several July 4 fireworks shows on Los Angeles County’s coast have fizzled this year — because of tighter environmental regulations.

Recently adopted rules regulating over-the-water fireworks displays in Los Angeles and Ventura counties have caused some tension between pyrotechnic companies and environmentalists, furthering an ongoing battle over the displays and potentially changing Fourth of July celebrations on the coast in the coming years.

The Los Angeles County Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is charged with protecting the water supply of the LA and Ventura regions, suddenly adopted a new fireworks-related permitting process in late May.

As a result, at least one major producer of fireworks shows that take place over the water has backed out of its commitments this year, citing the new regulations. That, in turn, has caused several major shows — including Redondo Beach’s popular King Harbor event — to be canceled, while a show in Long Beach had to find another producer.

The new rules have led to some sparring among those on both sides about the impact and benefits they will reap.

Water board officials and environmental advocates, on the one hand, say the new rules will help ensure pollutants from fireworks don’t end up in the ocean or other bodies of water.

“The permit requires implementation of best management practices,” water board Chair Norma Camacho said in a recent statement, “to ensure plastic and trash resulting from fireworks displays are captured and removed from our coastal waters.”

Those opposed to the new rules, on the other hand, say the regulations are unnecessary and that some of the recommended best practices could endanger those who set off the fireworks.

Jeff Ginsberg, for example, is a former Redondo Beach councilmember who for a couple of years has spearheaded a smaller Fourth of July fireworks show from that city’s Riviera Village neighborhood. That show has also been nixed.

The speedy implementation of the water board’s regulations, Ginsberg said, left everyone flat-footed.

“This is our country’s birthday and this is about freedom,” Ginsberg said, “and the freedom of having fireworks. And having them taken away from us goes against why we have the holiday in the first place.”

The new rules, though, are just the latest salvo in a years-long battle over coastal fireworks shows.

The impetus for the rules

The new rules quickly followed a federal judges’s ruling in a court case involving Long Beach’s popular Big Bang on the Bay, an annual fireworks show on Independence Day eve.

John Morris, owner of the Naples Restaurant Group, has put on that fireworks show over Alamitos Bay for years; it’s also a fundraiser for local charities.

The Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Morris and the Naples Restaurant Group in 2021, arguing organizers had violated the Clean Water Act by disseminating pollutants into the water. CERF sought to ban the show.

But a federal judge ruled against the environmental group in April.

The court found there was sufficient evidence to prove fireworks discharge entered Alamitos Bay during last year’s show, a violation of the CWA. But the judge also said there was not enough evidence to show a continuous problem, or that such issues were likely to occur in the future.

Still, because CERF was able to prove that a Clean Water Act violation occurred, the nonprofit and water board officials said, the ruling set a precedent that fireworks shows should be regulated under that law via a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit — which aims to prevent water pollution by regulating the sources that cause it.

A little more than a month later, the water board adopted the new permit.

“CERF is proud that we have influenced that decision and, of course, influenced the conditions that the board has implemented in that general permit,” CERF attorney Amy Johnsgard said in a Friday, June 30 interview. “In general, the idea is, if you’ve discharged fireworks over water — you have to clean up after yourself.”

Water board staffers said they moved quickly on establishing the regulations to ensure upcoming Independence Day fireworks displays could continue lawfully.

But so far, several Fourth of July fireworks displays have already been nixed because of the new permit requirements. The producer for most of those shows was Pyro Spectaculars, a major Rialto company that organizes about 400 professional shows across the state and country every year.

Shortly after the water board gave notice about the plan to adopt the permitting requirement, Pyro issued a statement saying it wouldn’t comply — citing concerns that the stricter water-protection rules could put their workers’ safety at risk.

Pyro officials denied several requests for an interview to elaborate further about their concerns.

Since then, the company has pulled out of at least five Independence Day shows, including those at Redondo Beach’s King Harbor, the Bel-Air Bay Club, and the Santa Monica Beach Club, as well as fireworks that were set to be shot off from a barge behind Long Beach’s Queen Mary.

The Queen Mary show, though, will go on, Morris said in a Friday interview. After Pyro pulled out, he said, a different pyrotechnic company called Garden State Fireworks agreed to take over the show.

Morris uses Garden State for Big Bang on the Bay and helped connect that company with the organizers of the Queen Mary show, which is sponsored by the Long Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau.

In lieu of the popular and long-standing King Harbor display, meanwhile, the Redondo Beach City Council recently OK’d a drone show.

“We cannot and will not risk the safety of our staff and the public to comply with the restrictive regulations,” Pyro CEO Jim Souza said in a recent statement. “The water board instituted the new regulations quickly and unilaterally, with little input from us, one of the largest and most experienced firework show producers in the nation.”

Water board staffers, though, said they sent a draft copy of the permit to Pyro for review and input. They made changes before the final version was OK’d, based on the company’s input, to clarify that the rules set forth should only be implemented “to the extent practicable and economically achievable.”

The board’s staffers also said they made the relevant pyrotechnic companies aware of the coming change in April and offered them a chance to get their applications in before the rules were even formally adopted, to ensure they’d still be ready come Independence Day.

Still, there were others aside from Pyro who took issue with the changes and the quickness with which they were implemented — such as Redondo Beach Councilmember Nils Nehrenheim.

Nehrenheim works as an independent contractor for Pyro Spectaculars and other fireworks companies, and he, like Souza, said the permit regulations may put fireworks crews in harm’s way during shows.

Under the water board’s new rules, to get an NPDES permit, fireworks show organizers must submit a “best management practices plan,” which describes procedures they’ll use to avoid polluting water.

It lays out several recommendations for prevention, though opponents took issue with some specific ones, including:

• Setting up three walls around the fireworks barges to prevent low-level pollution into the water.
• Using cameras before, during and after the show to monitor pollution levels.
• Employing a dive team or equivalent monitoring device to track pollution levels on the bay floor before and after fireworks shows.

Both Pyro and Nehrenheim said putting walls up around the barge, from which fireworks are launched, could put workers in danger by blocking their ability to exit the platforms in an emergency.

They also said requiring dive teams to check for fireworks discharge pollution on the ocean floor at night after shows could also put crews in harm’s way — and that visual recording equipment could create a tripping hazard.

But board staffers pointed out that the permit asks the pyrotechnic companies to submit a best practices plan that is doable — both practically and financially — for their specific shows.

“This Order prohibits discharge of plastic trash associated with firework displays into surface waters, and requires implementation of best management practices (BMPs) in lieu of traditional effluent limitations,” said the fact sheet for the water-quality board’s new regulations, “to ensure the discharges of residual firework pollutants do not cause pollution or nuisance conditions in surface waters within the Los Angeles Region.”

Water board officials also said that all of the listed recommendations, including the three walls around the barge, have been used in other shows, including Long Beach’s Big Bang, with no issues reported.

Johnsgard, meanwhile, also defended the speed with which the water board implemented the new rules.

While they may have been established quickly in LA, Johnsgard said, they have been in the works for years, and come on the heels of other regional water quality boards, including in San Diego and San Francisco, OK’ing NPDES permits with similar regulations in recent years. Generally, south Orange County is governed by the San Diego water board, while the rest is overseen by the one in Santa Ana; it doesn’t appear as if the Santa Ana board has such rules.

“It’s worth noting that before this general permit was developed, these fireworks dischargers were required to obtain an (individual) permit (to comply with the CWA),” Johnsgard said. “It’s really not that significant of a difference in terms of the method of compliance — the only difference is the enrollment process.”

The future of coastal shows

Still, Morris said, the new rules are frustrating — especially because of his recent lawsuit victory.

Big Bang also takes environmental protections seriously, he said. The event has had water-quality testing before and after Big Bang on the Bay for the last eight or nine years, Morris said. And Big Bang, he said, also uses fireworks with biodegradable shells, monitors potential impacts on the local bird population and routinely commissions a robotic camera to travel to the bottom of Alamitos Bay after the fireworks to search for any pollutants.

“There’s never been any pollutants in the water and we proved that in our trial,” Morris said. “You’d think we lost our trial, not won.”

And even though the water board included Morris in the permitting development process, he said, putting on this year’s show has proven to be the most difficult yet — as he attempts to comply with varying levels of regulatory requirements.

“I just don’t see the necessity to do a lot of the things that now we’re required to do,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

It’s also costly, Morris said.

Sending a dive team to the bottom of the bay to check for pollutants will cost about $2,000, he said, on top of the combined $8,000 he paid for permits from the water board and the California Coastal Commission, not to mention the $40,000 cost of the fireworks themselves.

Big Bang also faces another challenge down the road: CERF recently filed an appeal against the court’s April ruling in Morris’s favor.

But, Morris said, he’s not planning to back down anytime soon.

“It brings the community together,” Morris said. “We take care of kids on the Westside with that money we raise, but nobody wants to look at that side of the equation.”

It’s unclear, meanwhile, whether Pyro Spectaculars will return to putting on coastal fireworks shows throughout LA County next year. The company didn’t address the future in its statement.

Water board staffers, though, said Pyro officials have agreed to meet to discuss their concerns about the permit’s requirements. The water board is confident, officials said, that Pyro will agree to the provisions before Fourth of July next year.

But even if Pyro decides not to apply for the new permit in the future, Johnsgard said, it won’t be the end of water-based fireworks in Southern California.

“Clearly,” Johnsgard said, “there’s other vendors that can and are willing to put on fireworks displays that comply with safety and environmental regulations.”

Source: Orange County Register