New Sewage Treatment Breakdown Affects Dumping
As a result of another malfunction in the city of Los Angeles’ sewage treatment system, an extra 2.4 million gallons of sewage that received only partial treatment was dumped in Santa Monica Bay on Wednesday.
City officials said a mechanical failure at the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant near El Segundo forced a 90-minute shutdown of a secondary treatment unit, which removes enough chemicals and solids to make sewage usable for irrigation. Normally, about 25% of the plant’s 420 million gallons of daily discharge receives that treatment. The other 75% receives only primary treatment, meaning only solids are removed.
In a separate incident Sunday, a pump breakdown at the plant allowed 1.5 million gallons that had received secondary treatment to be dumped through an outfall pipe just one mile offshore, rather than the normal five miles.
Pump problems occurred again Thursday and 100,000 gallons that had received secondary treatment were dumped through the outfall closer to shore.
City public works officials blamed the breakdowns on aging and overloaded equipment.
County health officials, who at the direction of the Board of Supervisors have stepped up their monitoring of the discharges, said that tests on water samples taken from the bay showed the incidents had not created public health hazards.
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