New Sewage Spill Spurs Order for Overflow Tanks

On the heels of another major spill of raw sewage last weekend into Santa Monica Bay, Mayor Tom Bradley on Wednesday called for the immediate construction of overflow tanks to provide stopgap protection against growing problems with the city’s aging and overburdened sewage system.

City sanitation officials said that about 100,000 gallons of sewage overflowed Saturday afternoon and poured into Ballona Creek, which empties into the Pacific at Playa del Rey.

The spill was the fifth at the site in two months. Sanitation workers at the site manually shoveled chlorine salts onto the sewage to kill bacteria, said Del Biagi, director of the Bureau of Sanitation, but were powerless to stop the waste from pouring into the creek, and eventually, the ocean.

Although Biagi said there was “no indication of health problems,” the workers quickly notified the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the county Department of Health Services, the Board of Public Works and board President Maureen Kindel.

Although a spokeswoman said she didn’t know when Bradley had learned about Saturday’s spill, a source close to the mayor said he did not know about it until Tuesday or Wednesday and was “furious.” A Wednesday press release telling of Bradley’s call for the overflow tanks did not mention the weekend spill, “the highest level of sewage ever during the dry season,” according to Biagi.

The revelation of yet another major spill in the city sewage line could be politically embarrassing for Bradley, who is interested in running for governor next year and has been quick to criticize the environmental record of his likely rival, George Deukmejian.

“It’s highly disappointing to us all,” Biagi said. “We thought we’d had it whipped. It was a very sudden increase in the flow and the sewage rose very quickly. We really don’t know why.”

Bradley aide Anton Calleia said that, after a meeting Tuesday of an ad hoc committee formed several weeks ago, he told the mayor that sanitation and engineering officials suggested building concrete overflow tanks. The meeting had been scheduled for some time and was not called in response to Saturday’s spill, Calleia said. On Wednesday, Bradley directed his appointees on the Board of Public Works to start work on the holding tanks.

The board on Friday will consider a detailed staff report on the tanks, and the Los Angeles City Council next week will have to approve money to pay for the tanks, probably in the range of $500,000, according to city officials.

The city last month had to pay $30,050 in state fines for dumping 85,000 gallons during four separate occasions in July into Ballona Creek. The site of the spill, at Jackson Avenue in Culver City, is a “relief valve” for the Hyperion treatment facility near El Segundo.

The Jackson Avenue overflow gate was built in the 1940s, Biagi said, so that a sudden onslaught of sewage would flow into the storm drain of Ballona Creek rather than rupture the pipes that lead to Hyperion eight miles away. This overflow feature was considered permissible during the rainy season, but considered “unusual and worrisome” during the dry season, he said.

The new San Fernando Valley Tillman sewage treatment plant, opened earlier this week, will siphon off some of the sewage generated by the Valley. But Biagi said that two-thirds of the sewage from the Valley, in addition to waste from several other parts of the city and smaller cities that contract with Los Angeles, must go through the Jackson site to Hyperion, which handles 420 million gallons a day.

The holding tanks, scheduled to be installed next summer, would have a 1-million gallon capacity and would be equipped with “odor scrubbers” or deodorizers.