Pipe Break Sends Raw Sewage Into Salton Sea

Up to 10 million gallons a day of raw sewage are flowing into the New River, which crosses into California and empties into the Salton Sea, as a result of a major break in an underground sewage line in Mexicali, state and federal officials said Thursday.

The break occurred April 4 along a 150- to 200-yard-long section of an underground concrete collector pipe that carries raw sewage to a Mexicali treatment plant. U.S. officials were not informed until a week later.

Mexican officials, who have diverted the raw sewage into an agricultural drainage ditch that flows into the New River, have told the United States that repairs cannot be completed for 60 days.

The discharge of raw sewage has been estimated at from 2 million to 3 million gallons per day by the International Boundary and Water Commission. However, Lee Cottrell, the Imperial County health officer, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told him the discharge was 10 million gallons a day. EPA officials were not available for comment.

Officials of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board in Palm Desert said Thursday they have stepped up water monitoring along the 68-mile length of the New River between the Mexican border and the Salton Sea.

Imperial County health officials have long warned against swimming in the New River. No such warning is posted in the Salton Sea, however. Local authorities said the salt content of the sea kills any remaining bacteria. The severest health threat is found at the border, officials said.

“You can just see the raw sewage as you stand on the international bridge,” said Arthur Swajian, executive officer of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Fecal coliform, found in human and animal waste, has been found in extremely high levels in the New River, far exceeding federal standards for swimming. The federal swimming standard is 1,000 fecal coliform per 100 milliliters of sample. “We’ve had easily as high as 35 million per 100 milliliters and . . . I’d say we run an average of 2 or 3 million from samples right at the border,” Swajian said.

The April 4 break is the latest in a series of “sizable failures” since 1982 in the 36-inch diameter collector line, officials said. But Cottrell, the Imperial County health officer, charged Thursday that even if there was no break in the line, the sewage treatment plant is of little value.

Cottrell, a physician, said in a telephone interview that he has visited the 10-year-old sewage treatment plant five times a year, only to find the settling ponds empty and overgrown with weeds. He also said that 14 aerators intended to enhance the treatment of the sewage have never been connected to electricity.

Critical of Mexicans

“This spill really reminds us that they (Mexicans) are not doing a damn thing about the problem,” Cottrell said. “The daily sewage flow into the New River into the United States is 25 million gallons. This 10 million gallons is part of the 25 million. It’s just that in the past it has been sent on a four- to five-mile trip through a pipe before it’s dumped into the New River.

“Don’t call it a sewage treatment plant,” Cottrell said.

Bob Ybarra, secretary for the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, confirmed in a telephone interview from El Paso, Tex., that the aerators are not operating. “We have urged Mexico to connect them for a number of months now,” Ybarra said. He did, however, report that as of last week 12 of the 13 settling ponds do contain fluid.

Ybarra said the Mexicali plant is used only for primary treatment of sewage, meaning that solids and other matter are allowed to settle to the bottom of the settling ponds, and the remaining fluid is pumped into the New River untreated.

The Mexican government has agreed to make improvements, Ybarra said, and new treatment facilities have been constructed in the eastern industrial areas of Mexicali. There have been few improvements elsewhere.