L.A. Told to Fully Treat Sewage Dumped Into Sea

Sounding what could be the final shot in a decade-long environmental battle, the state Regional Water Quality Control Board on Monday ordered the city of Los Angeles to fully treat the 410 million gallons of sewage it dumps daily into Santa Monica Bay.

The board unanimously denied a waiver that would have allowed the city to continue dumping partly treated waste into the bay, and called on Los Angeles officials to quickly take steps to improve its sewer system.

Noting their lengthy dispute with the city, board members appeared skeptical that city officials would readily accept the full treatment order. Board staff members were ordered to keep track of the city’s progress and report back to the board at least twice a year.

“I think we’re prepared to go the whole way, the whole nine yards, to watch them,” said board chairman James Grossman.

Last week, when the board’s staff issued a report recommending denial of the city’s waiver, Grossman offered to work with city officials to obtain federal and state grants to finance the full treatment improvements. But on Monday he criticized the city’s attempts to avoid treating its sewage.

“Sometimes I wonder where the city has been in the past,” he said. “(The city’s leadership) has just simply followed the easiest way.”

City sanitation and engineering officials who testified at two public hearings on the waiver earlier this year did not appear at Monday’s hearing.

Currently, less than 25% of the city’s waste receives full “secondary” treatment--removal of enough chemicals and bacteria to make waste water usable for irrigation--before leaving the Hyperion sewage treatment plant in El Segundo. The remainder receives just enough treatment to remove solids before it is dumped through an outfall pipe five miles offshore.

Under the waiver that the city sought, about 60% of the waste would have received full treatment. City Bureau of Sanitation director Delwin A. Biagi said that level would have required more than $280 million in improvements to the Hyperion plant.

The move to full treatment of all sewage would take another $160 million--for a total outlay of more than $440 million. The full treatment system would take at least eight years to build, City Engineer Robert S. Horii said Monday.

City officials can ask for a new waiver or appeal the board’s Monday decision, but Biagi and Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said they will recommend that the city construct the full treatment facilities.

“The city is not going to drag its feet,” said Yaroslavsky, chairman of the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee. “The city wants to resolve its problems sooner than anyone else.”

Council President Pat Russell said she, too, does not expect the council to appeal the state board’s ruling.

Continuing Dispute

In the absence of an appeal or a new waiver request, the board’s vote marks the end of a vitriolic battle over how much treatment the city’s sewage should receive. Since the early 1970s, Los Angeles has demanded a waiver from the federal government’s full treatment standards, saying that full treatment was environmentally unnecessary and enormously costly.

But in an abrupt turnaround, Mayor Tom Bradley in September came out in support of full treatment. Despite that change of heart, which the mayor has not explained but which came as Bradley was taking political heat amid charges of polluting the bay, the city had continued to press its waiver request.

Deputy Mayor Tom Houston said the city did so because it felt that a denial--in effect a notice for the city to begin immediate improvements--would help the city receive federal funding.

Horii and Biagi are expected to formally report the water board’s action to the full City Council within a month. If the council agrees to proceed with full treatment of the city’s sewage, it is required by the state board to work out a timetable for construction and report back to the board in January.

Harbor Project

In another action destined to add to Los Angeles’ growing sewer budget, the water board Monday also ordered the city to extend outside Los Angeles Harbor a pipeline that deposits fully treated sewage into the harbor area.

About 20 million gallons of sewage is dumped from a small Terminal Island processing plant into Los Angeles Harbor each day, sanitation director Biagi said. Although the length of the extension has not been set, city officials estimate that the project will cost at least $40 million. Construction is expected to take five years.

Including improvements ordered by the state board Monday, the city Bureau of Sanitation’s nine-year budget calls for more than $1.5 billion in new construction and another $700 million in maintenance and other costs.

City officials and a private consultant are studying ways of meeting the financial burden, including the sale of revenue bonds or more than doubling of the present $5.40 residential sewer fee.

Yaroslavsky has also suggested placing a higher fee on new commercial or residential projects that put additional pressure on the aging sewer system.