Group Sees Crusade for Clean Ocean Turn the Tide

In the beginning, Richard and Carol MacManus were, by their own admission, little more than “concerned citizens.”

Last September, the couple began hearing about a plan to reduce the treatment of 14 million gallons of sewage pumped each day into the sun-dappled seas about a mile off Cardiff State Beach. To the MacManuses, that meant one thing--a dirtier ocean.

Alarmed by the news, the Cardiff couple journeyed to San Diego for a hearing on the proposed waiver. Much to their surprise, they found only a half-dozen other residents had bothered to show up. Worse yet, the couple said, the regional panel conducting the hearing acted as if the permit was a foregone conclusion.

“They were polite enough, but it seemed as if they weren’t listening to us,” recalled Richard MacManus, 39, a Carlsbad attorney. “I couldn’t help but get the feeling there was nothing we could do.”

It was a pivotal event. Almost overnight, Richard and Carol MacManus, concerned citizens, became impassioned activists.

Using their cozy, gray clapboard house as a headquarters, the couple founded People for a Clean Ocean, a grass-roots group that in just six months has become a potent political force in North County.

Armed with placards and leaflets, the feisty organization has stormed city halls and meeting rooms, coordinated carefully crafted media events and blanketed beach towns from Del Mar to Oceanside with thousands of “Clean Ocean” bumper stickers adorned with a drawing of a toilet covered by a red circle and slash.

With a following that group leaders boast numbers nearly 5,000 residents, People for a Clean Ocean has scored several key victories in recent weeks. Most notably, the organization whipped up a tidal wave of protest that helped persuade the Oceanside City Council last month to scrap plans to reduce treatment of 11 million gallons of sewage piped offshore there.

Moreover, the organization has taken an issue that had previously sparked little fervor among coastal residents and pushed it to the top of the community agenda, making the unlikely--and somewhat unappealing--subject of sewage a topic of conversation in bars and supermarket lines throughout the area.

Now the Cardiff-based group, an eclectic band representing a cross section of residents from doctors and lawyers to tousle-haired surfers, is posed for new challenges. Topping the list are plans for a renewed assault on the ocean sewage outfall in Cardiff and an effort to reverse a 1985 decision relaxing treatment of waste water discharged offshore of the Encina power plant in Carlsbad.

Veteran activists have welcomed the group’s arrival on the scene, noting that it has renewed passion and brought increased numbers to the county’s environmental community.

“I think it’s fantastic they’ve been able to build the kind of support they have in a relatively short period of time,” said Jay Powell, conservation coordinator with the San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club. “There’s this cross section that comes together in a group like this. There’s a synergy that becomes greater than the handful of people.”

Joan Jackson, a Carlsbad resident who serves as conservation chairwoman for the local Sierra Club chapter, agreed.

“Instead of sitting at home and opening another beer and saying, ‘Ah, shucks,’ they’ve gone out and used our system of government the way it’s supposed to be used,” Jackson said. “They have a real ability to get the troops out. Sometimes it takes that to have an impact.”

While winning support from Old Guard environmentalists, the group has attracted critics, who contend the organization is more adept at spreading misinformation than fact and has used emotional arguments to cloud the real issues.

“Obviously, they’re very effective and I think they’re well-meaning,” said Kris Lindstrom, a Sacramento-based marine consultant who worked with Oceanside sewer officials. “But the group has a limited focus and is only presenting one side of the issue.”

Lindstrom said he felt leaders of the group had attacked his professional integrity during the April hearing before the Oceanside City Council, taking some “cheap shots that were uncalled for.”

Perhaps the group’s harshest critic is San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding. Although Golding endorses the organization’s mission, she believes some of its tactics are damaging the cause.

In particular, the supervisor said, she is perplexed by the MacManuses’ call for a boycott of an informational meeting she sponsored on the sewage treatment issue last month. In a letter urging Clean Ocean supporters not to attend, MacManus called the meeting a “political sham” and argued it was inappropriate for agencies that vote on the sewage issue to participate in the public forum.

“I have never seen such a bizarre attitude by the leaders of any community group in all my years in politics,” Golding said. “If only one person stayed away from that meeting because of their boycott, they hurt their cause. The consensus that emerged that night was one in support of secondary treatment.”

Golding also accused group leaders, namely Richard MacManus, of placing “a personal agenda above the issue itself.”

“I don’t know if it’s opportunism or self-aggrandizement,” Golding said, “but when leaders of a cause are not willing to let people hear all the facts and then decide the issue themselves, you have to question their purpose.”

The MacManuses and other leaders of the Clean Ocean coalition chafe at such assessments, insisting they have no plans to seek elected office. The group’s sole goal, they maintain, is to protect the pristine allure of the coastal waters lapping the shore near their homes.

“The ocean can’t speak for itself,” said Carol MacManus, a 32-year-old housewife. “Someone has to be there speaking for it.”

Like other members of the group, the MacManuses’ chief concern, they say, is the possibility that a reduced level of treatment would create a health risk in the waves, introducing disease-causing viruses normally eliminated at the processing plant.

While sewage specialists maintain there is no scientific proof that such viruses can survive for long in the salty coastal waters, Richard MacManus counters that the experts have been unable to prove that no danger exists.

According to MacManus, there are 200 times as many viral particles in waste water subjected to “primary treatment,” a process that simply allows solids to settle, as in sewage going through “secondary treatment,” which uses microorganisms to consume waste.

Various cities and other agencies in the county are seeking federal waivers that would allow them to process sewage with the less-refined form of treatment, arguing that it would keep costs down.

For example, if Oceanside had been granted such a waiver, the city would have saved up to $300,000 a year in reduced treatment costs. In addition, the city could have saved $25 million that will be necessary to finance sewage treatment plant expansion to handle population growth during the coming decades.

At Cardiff, the ocean outfall handles sewage from the City of Escondido and a county plant. Despite protests from MacManus’ group, the two agencies have been granted a waiver by the Regional Water Quality Control Board to begin pumping sewage subjected only to “advanced primary treatment”--a mix of affluent processed with secondary or primary treatments--into the offshore waters.

People for a Clean Ocean on Friday appealed that decision to the state water board. Indeed, MacManus said, the group has just begun to fight, promising to take the matter to court if necessary.

Although the MacManuses hold posts on the Cardiff Town Council, a local residents group, they are newcomers to environmental protest.

The couple, who moved to Cardiff in 1978, regard the ocean as their front yard. Richard, a wiry man with sea-blue eyes, rises early each morning to surf along Cardiff reef before donning a suit and heading to work. Carol, a trim, energetic brunette, enjoys taking the couple’s two small children for walks or picnics on the sands.

After first considering whether to tap the resources of existing environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, the couple decided to form their own organization, reasoning that the issue was a community problem that could best be handled on a local basis. In addition, an organization composed of homeowners and other residents might be better received by local lawmakers, they decided.

The MacManuses launched the campaign by knocking on the doors of their neighbors. The community was receptive. Coastal residents’ attachment to the ocean, a major recreational asset and virtual centerpiece of life in the region, made them easy conscripts for the clean-ocean cause.

“Nobody knew they were trying to reduce treatment at Cardiff,” Carol MacManus recalls. “When we told people, they were so upset. It became obvious there was a need to get the word out. Once we made people aware, we knew we’d get their support.”

Soon afterward, a steering committee was formed of about a dozen key supporters. In October, the group held a surfing contest at Cardiff State Beach, dubbing the event “The Last Clean Water Surfing Contest” and distributing flyers to spectators and participants.

The group followed with a surfboard-paddling exhibition along the Cardiff shoreline. The event, something of a water-borne protest, featured a flotilla of placard-carrying surfers paddling boards outfitted with toilets or pulling caskets.

While early supporters consisted mostly of surfers, the group began to gain broader backing in the weeks that followed, holding meetings at Cardiff Elementary School and distributing flyers to residents of coastal communities during the weekend. The group’s bumper stickers soon became a common sight on cars and trucks along the coast, particularly in the Cardiff area.

“Each time we had an event, we found our base of support was getting bigger,” Richard MacManus said, noting how his wife began receiving several calls a day from interested residents.

Among those recruits was Gary Taylor, 28, an Encinitas resident who attends MiraCosta College. An avid surfer, Taylor has long considered the waters around Cardiff to be dirtier than other areas because of the sewage outfall. He’s eager to see the situation improve.

“I worry about it,” Taylor said. “For me it’s kind of like getting in an accident on the freeway. You know it could happen, but you also know it’s not worth ruining your day by.”

Other members of the group feel compelled for different reasons. Ed Diaz, 66, came to Cardiff after retiring as a firefighter in Los Angeles, moving into a two-bedroom home nestled on a hill overlooking the beach. He would hate to see his dreams of a peaceful retirement with his wife, Juanita, spoiled by polluted water.

“I’ve always shunned politics, but this was different,” he said. “The ocean is this big bowl of water. You keep dumping sewage in it and it’s not going to be the same.”

Calvin Tom, a 35-year-old computer consultant, moved to Cardiff in 1973 with his wife and children for a single reason--to be near the ocean.

“As far as this area goes, the ocean is the most valuable natural resource we have,” he said. “I’d like to see the water as clean as possible.”

In hopes of doing just that, the organization has at times taken unusual steps. In late March, several members of the group paddled out into the surf off Cardiff State Beach and took water samples. Analysis by a private laboratory showed that the ocean water was contaminated, a finding that prompted county officials to close down a 200-yard stretch of beach in late March. It was reopened about a week ago.

Besides shutting down the beach for a time, the revelations prompted two surfers to file million-dollar claims against three local and state agencies, contending they contracted illnesses after swimming in the sewage-contaminated water. Those claims are pending.

Although the group’s efforts had focused on the Cardiff outfall, leaders learned in March that Oceanside was up for a waiver. Realizing that the sewage problem was a regional issue, Clean Ocean organizers began pushing their campaign further north, distributing flyers in Oceanside and sending literature to council members there.

It was a success. More than 300 people packed the Oceanside City Council chambers for the April 22 hearing, a turnout that made council members sit up and take notice.

Mayor Larry Bagley said the group “made very effective presentations” that pointed out “a lot of the unknowns” regarding the health risks.

Councilman John MacDonald, meanwhile, said the group’s presentation did not have “a strong effect” on the outcome, but he nonetheless appreciated their gumption.

“I really admire those people,” MacDonald said. “To see people really care about an issue gives me a good feeling about our system.”

Buoyed by that victory, the group now is looking toward other goals. But some skeptics say People for a Clean Ocean may have a more difficult time swaying elected officials from inland communities.

“I think anyone who lives on the coast of California cares a great deal about the ocean,” Golding said. “Ask people if they want a clean ocean and of course they’ll say yes. They’ll have a much tougher time convincing Escondido on this thing.”

Nonetheless, the group is pressing forward with verve. And after those battles are fought, some of the group’s leaders hint, they may tackle other issues, among them offshore oil drilling.

“If there isn’t anybody being the watchdog for the ocean, it will be ruined,” Carol MacManus said. “In that sense, we’re not a flash in the pan. People’s awareness has been raised. You don’t just lose that after one issue has passed.”