Alamitos Bay is one of Long Beach’s most treasured waterways. It is a place of recreation for the community and a living ecosystem that sustains fish, birds, and marine life year round. But what many do not realize is that the Bay’s circulation, how water moves in and out, has not always been “natural.”
For over half a century, the flow of water in Alamitos Bay has been quietly shaped by industrial infrastructure at the Alamitos Energy Center, formerly the AES power plant. That influence is now disappearing, and through Algalita’s new program, Clean Bay Collective, our community is beginning to step into a pivotal moment in the Bay’s future.
How Pumped Water Has Historically Moved Alamitos Bay
The original Alamitos Generating Station was built in the late 1950s by Southern California Edison. Its steam turbine units relied on once through cooling (OTC), pulling large volumes of seawater from Alamitos Bay to cool equipment and then discharging that water into the San Gabriel River estuary.
In 1998, the AES Corporation purchased the facility, continuing to operate those systems.
Although the pumps were never intended to improve water quality, they moved enormous volumes of water every day. City modeling later showed that this pumping significantly reduced the residence time of water in the Bay, meaning water was replaced faster than tidal flushing alone would provide.
For decades, Alamitos Bay’s circulation patterns were therefore shaped by both tides and industrial pumping.
Why Those Pumps Are Going Away
In 2010, the California State Water Resources Control Board adopted the Once-Through Cooling Policy to protect marine ecosystems after studies showed that these systems:
• kill fish larvae and plankton
• trap organisms on intake screens
• interfere with wetland restoration
• disrupt nearshore food webs
This policy set Alamitos Bay on a path away from the industrial infrastructure that had shaped its circulation for decades.
To comply, AES filed an application in December 2013 to modernize the Alamitos plant. The California Energy Commission approved the project in April 2017, and construction began in July 2017. The new Alamitos Energy Center came online in February 2020 using air-cooled technology that no longer pulls seawater from the Bay. A large battery storage system followed in 2021.
Between 2019 and 2020, the legacy once-through cooling units were progressively retired. However, some of the old pump systems have continued operating under temporary regulatory extensions granted by the State Water Resources Control Board. These extensions were intended to maintain grid reliability while giving the City and community time to confront a much bigger question: how should Alamitos Bay function once the industrial systems that shaped it for over 60 years are fully gone?
As a result, not all legacy pumps have been switched off yet. The full phase-out of once-through cooling at Alamitos is scheduled to be completed by 2026. Until then, the Bay remains in a transitional state, influenced partly by fading industrial systems and partly by natural tidal forces. This in-between period is why community-based water quality monitoring is so important right now. It is the moment when we can observe, document, and understand how the Bay is changing before its future is locked into new infrastructure decisions.
How the City Responded
As the retirement of the power plant’s cooling pumps became imminent, the Long Beach City Council took formal action.
On June 21, 2022, City Council approved amendments to its Memorandum of Understanding with AES, allocating funding and authorizing early engineering work for what is now known as the Alamitos Bay Water Quality Enhancement Project (ABWQE). This shifted the issue from internal technical planning into a public decision-making process.
Between 2024 and 2025, the City completed a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The Draft EIR was released for public review from September 17 to November 17, 2025. That comment period has now closed, and the City is preparing the Final EIR, which must include written responses to all substantive public comments.
The Final EIR will be presented to the Planning Commission and City Council for certification and potential project approval, moving the project toward design, permitting, and construction.
What the Alamitos Bay Water Quality Enhancement Project is Evaluating
The Draft EIR examines how Alamitos Bay should function after once-through cooling systems are fully retired. For decades, circulation in the Bay was shaped by industrial infrastructure. Now, the City is studying whether future systems should attempt to replicate those historical conditions or whether alternative approaches could better support long-term ecological health.
Key elements under review include:
- Installation of new infrastructure within the existing intake canal to convey water between Alamitos Bay and the San Gabriel River estuary
- Design of intake systems intended to reduce impacts to fish and other aquatic organisms
- Evaluation of potential effects on wetlands, aquatic biological resources, recreation, and water quality
- Identification of mitigation measures to avoid or minimize environmental harm
The Draft EIR also highlights areas of disagreement, including concerns raised by organizations such as the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust whether replacing the pumps would perpetuate ecological stress on sensitive habitats.
At its core, the analysis reflects a central question: should Alamitos Bay’s future be shaped by a new generation of engineered circulation systems, or by a broader shift toward restoring natural tidal processes and watershed health?
What Happens Next in the Environmental Review Process
Now that the Draft EIR review period has ended, the City must:
• Prepare the Final EIR, including responses to all public comments
• Present the Final EIR to decision-making bodies
• Ask the Planning Commission and City Council to certify the document and consider project approval
This phase is when community awareness and understanding matter most, as the project moves from planning toward real-world implementation.
A Hard Question: Should Alamitos Bay Even Get New Pumps?
For more than 60 years, industrial cooling pumps have shaped how water moves through Alamitos Bay. As those systems shut down, the City is studying how to maintain circulation.
But not everyone agrees that replacing the pumps is the right solution.
Environmental organizations including the Los Cerritos Wetlands Land Trust, Heal the Bay, and L.A. Waterkeeper have raised a fundamental concern: that any pump system, no matter how “fish-friendly,” continues the same pattern that harmed the Bay in the first place.
They argue that:
• Pumps remove fish eggs, larvae, plankton, and microscopic organisms that are the foundation of the wetland food web.
• Wetlands cannot fully recover if their smallest life stages are continuously pulled out of the system.
• Even modern intake screens reduce entrainment of the smallest organisms by only a tiny amount.
• Pumping does not clean polluted water. It simply moves it from one place to another.
Their position is not “do nothing.”
It is: do not default to another industrial circulation system without fully exploring better solutions.
They are calling for the City to seriously evaluate alternatives that:
• Capture and treat polluted stormwater before it enters the Bay
• Restore wetlands so they naturally improve water quality
• Reduce pollution at the source instead of exporting it elsewhere
• Allow the Bay’s living systems to recover rather than relying on mechanical fixes
This is the real crossroads Alamitos Bay now faces.
The Bay and Wetlands Are One Living System
Alamitos Bay is not just water bordered by homes and marinas. It is part of a living network that includes the San Gabriel River estuary and the Los Cerritos Wetlands, one of the last remaining coastal wetland landscapes in Southern California. What happens in the Bay flows outward into the marshes and channels that shelter young fish, feed migrating birds, and hold generations of restoration dreams.
Clean Bay Collective is rooted in care for this whole system. We walk alongside the many organizations and neighbors who already protect these places, adding community-gathered observations that help tell the fuller story of how the Bay and wetlands are responding together during this time of change.
Why Clean Bay Collective Is Launching Now
This environmental review is unfolding at the exact moment Alamitos Bay’s circulation is beginning to change in real time. While engineers design potential pump systems and policymakers review technical reports, there is still genuine uncertainty about what the Bay will become once decades of industrial circulation fully fade away.
Some see replacement pumps as a safeguard. Others believe true recovery may only happen if the Bay is finally allowed to function as a living system again. What is clear is that this transition will shape water quality, wildlife, and recreation for generations.
That is why Clean Bay Collective is launching community-based water quality monitoring now.
By tracking temperature, turbidity, nutrients, pH, salinity, and post-storm conditions, residents, students, and volunteers will create a living record of how the Bay responds as these systems are phased out. This is not about proving a single outcome. It is about listening to the Bay itself.
The CEQA process plans the future on paper.
Clean Bay Collective grounds it in lived experience.