L.A. Agrees to Pay $30,050 Fine for Raw Sewage Spills Into Ocean

Los Angeles agreed Wednesday to pay more than $30,000 in state fines for dumping 85,000 gallons of raw sewage from the city’s Hyperion treatment plant into Ballona Creek, which flows into the Pacific at Playa del Rey.

The fine covered four spills that occurred between July 12 and July 26, according to city officials.

Robert P. Ghirelli, executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, said the fine will be the first paid by a municipal government to the regional board for sewage spills. The board controls water quality in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

The City Council’s decision to pay the fines--and waive a water board hearing set for Monday--came minutes after council members called an executive session to discuss the ailing Hyperion plant, council President Pat Russell said. The decision to accept the $30,050 figure recommended by the water board’s staff was unanimous.

“We thought it was the wisest course to take,” she said. “It’s clear there had been spills.”

In addition to paying the fines, city officials agreed to set in motion a number of improvements at the Hyperion plant in El Segundo aimed at improving the treatment of sewage.

A $2-million automatic chlorination system to disinfect the raw sewage will be in place within two months, a spokeswoman for the city engineer’s office said. That will make unnecessary a current system in which Hyperion workers have to manually shovel chlorine salts onto sewage whenever it overflows into the creek, Ghirelli said.

A bypass system that handles overflowing sewage also will be improved, city officials said. The biggest improvement will be provided this fall, when the San Fernando Valley’s Tillman sewage treatment plant begins operation. Its treated sewage will be released into the Los Angeles River and not into the line that flows into Ballona Creek.

City officials have repeatedly acknowledged that the 35-year-old Hyperion plant is antiquated. That condition, water officials said, has led to the dumping of more than 1.2 million gallons of raw sewage into the creek in the last year. The spills have ranged up to 500,000 gallons, water control officials said.

But water quality officials were particularly alarmed this summer when the system overflowed in dry weather. “Spills were occurring in periods when they really shouldn’t be,” Ghirelli said.

City records show that 10,000 gallons spilled on July 12. An additional 30,000 gallons was dumped into the creek on July 20. Two days later, five gallons spilled, and on July 26, a 40,000-gallon spill was recorded.

Moreover, a meter designed to chart the spills was found to be improperly set, raising the possibility that overflows were larger or more commonplace, Ghirelli said.

Ghirelli said the water quality board had never before fined a city, largely because until January the board had to forward its complaints to the district attorney in a complex review process.

Under a law that went into effect Jan. 1, however, the board is allowed to assess its own fines without forwarding matters to other agencies.