Mission Bay Reopens After Spill : Sewage Sludge Leak May Cost City a $20,000 Fine

County health officials on Tuesday opened a section of Mission Bay that had been quarantined after 2,000 gallons of sewage sludge seeped through a storm drain and into a cove off Fiesta Island last week.

County health officer Donald Ramras said water quality tests indicated that the contamination has dissipated.

“Our tests show that the contamination was never extensive and that the problems were limited to the area immediately surrounding the spill,” Ramras said. “Cleanup efforts were successful and we feel the bay no longer needs to be posted.”

Last Wednesday, health officials closed the eastern section of the bay, between the island and the mainland as far north as the visitors’ center off Interstate 5. The quarantine followed an early-morning spill that allowed 2,000 gallons of sludge--the highly concentrated byproduct of treated sewage--to leak from a drying pond on Fiesta Island into Enchanted Cove.

The city uses the ponds to dry treated sewage pumped to the island from the processing plant on Point Loma. After drying for 30 to 60 days, the sludge is disposed of or used as fertilizer. Last week’s spill was the second such episode in six years.

According to the city’s Water Utilities Department, the sludge leaked through a six-foot hole in an earthen berm that surrounds one of the ponds. Officials speculated that the break in the berm was caused by an earthquake that rattled the county earlier in the week.

The health hazard may have abated, but the city still faces the wrath of Regional Water Quality Control Board officials, who are preparing a complaint against the city and may impose penalties in connection with the spill.

Senior engineer Mike McCann said the spill represents a violation of the city’s waste-discharge permit. He said the board’s staff will recommend that the city be charged $10 per gallon at the panel’s meeting Oct. 27.

The city, already under fire from the board for breakdowns at a Sorrento Valley pump station and other problems, is expected to argue against such a penalty.