Reagan Veto Kills Offshore Sewage Line

Orange County environmentalists had mixed reactions Thursday to President Reagan’s veto of the Clean Water Act--anger that the nation’s rivers may have to wait to be cleaned up but relief that a proposed sludge pipeline off Huntington Beach had been dealt a serious blow.

An amendment to the revamped Clean Water Act of 1986 would have allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant a permit for construction of an eight-mile experimental pipeline to discharge treated concentrated sewage into the ocean.

That authorization died Thursday along with the rest of the act when President Reagan exercised a pocket veto of the bill.

“I personally have problems with the idea of an experimental sludge outfall off of 17 miles of bathing beach as a national experiment . . . ,” said Lorraine Faber, a spokeswoman for Amigos de Bolsa Chica, an Orange County wetlands preservation group. “I’m not disappointed that that part of the Clean Water Act did not come to deed, but there are important things in the Clean Water Act that the nation needs.”

Ocean dumping of sewer sludge by pipeline was outlawed in the original 1972 Clean Water Act, and such pipelines are being phased out nationally, including Los Angeles’ seven-mile pipeline that dumps treated sludge into polluted Santa Monica Bay.

Proponents of the Orange County project have contended, however, that the ban was not justified scientifically and that piping sludge to great depths in the ocean could be the safest, most economical way to get rid of it. The EPA opposes the experimental pipeline.

Cheaper Than Landfills

In addition to proving that ocean dumping of sludge is safe under some circumstances, the Sanitation Districts of Orange County sought to reduce the expense of sludge disposal in landfills, which currently runs about four times the estimated $500,000 annual cost of ocean dumping.

In 1981, the county Sanitation Districts began forging a proposal for a $20-million pipeline that would discharge sludge in the ocean at a depth of 1,000 to 1,300 feet. As amended in the House version of the act, the EPA was given authority to issue a permit for the experimental pipeline.

In conference committee, however, the EPA also was granted authority to halt the project if any degradation of the marine environment occurred, said James Barich, a spokesman for the measure’s author, Rep. Glenn Anderson (D-Long Beach).

Congressional sources indicated that the Clean Water Act would probably be revived and that another attempt would be made to pass it when Congress reconvenes. No one was certain, however, whether the pipeline amendment also would remain intact.

May Be Reintroduced

“There was speculation that if the President did veto the bill, the identical bill would be reintroduced in January, passed swiftly and sent to the President next spring,” Barich said. “Then we would be in session, and if he did veto it a second time, we would be there to try to override the veto.”

But even if an identical version of the Clean Water Act is passed again next year, an official for the Sanitation Districts said the prospect of another presidential veto raises serious questions about the pipeline’s future.

The issue will go back to the districts’ board of directors for review, and for the present, “we are just going to continue to be regulated by the 1972 law,” said Wayne Sylvester, general manager for the agency.

Dori Denning, Southern California co-chairwoman of the Sierra Club’s Clean Coastal Waters Task Force, said she was pleased and called the idea of a sludge pipeline off Orange County “a step backwards.”

“I’m disappointed that he (Reagan) has vetoed the Clean Water Act,” Denning said. “As I understand it, it was a lot more stringent than the last one. However, we were appalled with the sludge line getting through. We had been told by Senate staffers that they were going to fight to keep it out in conference committee. I don’t know how it got through. So I’m glad that (the presidential veto) throws that off.”

Still, Denning would have preferred that the Clean Water Act was approved, sludge line or no, she said, “because I think we may have had ways of fighting the sludge line even if it went through.”

President Reagan cites the high cost of the Clean Water Act in announcing his veto. Part I, Page 1.