Question City Stance : Groups Claim Sewage Study Needs Scrutiny

Environmentalists, divers and fishermen on Thursday called for public scrutiny of San Diego’s sewage treatment planning process, saying they doubted the Water Utilities Department’s analysis of the economic and environmental costs of dumping sewage in the ocean.

Several criticized the city manager’s new report on whether to upgrade the giant Point Loma sewage treatment plant. The Times reported Thursday that the report neglected to describe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s principal argument indicating that city sewage may be harming marine life.

“It really seems to oversimplify and minimize any sort of adverse impact on the environment,” said John Reaves, a lawyer and Sierra Club activist on sewage issues. “ . . . It certainly does not provide the proper information for the City Council to make an informed decision.”

“If necessary, we’ll go through paragraph by paragraph and rebut,” said Lee Olsen, a certified internal auditor and president of the San Diego Council of Divers. He said he had met Wednesday with the report’s author and complained of inaccuracies and “misstatements of fact.”

The purpose of the report is to advise the City Council on whether to upgrade the city’s sewage treatment plant to meet federal standards. The city must decide by March 30 whether to upgrade the plant or to reapply to the EPA for a waiver of the standards.

The city manager’s office recommended Monday against upgrading, suggesting that the city simply dump its treated waste farther out at sea. Under the law, the EPA may grant a waiver if it concludes that a city’s sewage is not damaging marine life.

A City Council hearing on the question is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

On Thursday, the EPA oceanographer who assessed the biological effects of the city’s sewage dumping on the ocean confirmed that the EPA has found “adverse impact” and that marine life near the city’s 2 1/2-mile sewage outfall has been jeopardized.

Philip Oshida said his findings were significant in the EPA’s tentative denial in September of the city’s bid for a waiver. He said the adverse impact on marine life near the sewage outfall pipe was one of the two main reasons for the denial.

His remarks ran counter to Assistant City Manager John Fowler’s contention that the city’s sewage “is not harming the environment.” In spite of the disappearance or reduction of some species, Fowler said bottom-dwelling animals had not been jeopardized.

Fowler said Wednesday that city officials did not consider the biological argument significant. However, Oshida said it was no less significant than the EPA’s other main finding--that the sewage violates state bacteria standards in the Point Loma kelp bed.

On Thursday, several groups took issue with Fowler’s report, which recommends against converting the 170-million-gallon-a-day plant to secondary treatment. Instead, it recommends extending the outfall pipe by 1 1/2 miles so that the effluent, which receives advanced primary treatment, would be dumped farther from the kelp bed.

Olsen questioned the Water Utilities Department’s contention that upgrading would cost $1 billion and triple the average resident’s monthly bill to $24. Olsen, who said he has studied the city’s computations, said the figure is based on a “worst-case scenario” in which current city water customers would bear the entire burden.

Olsen said his group intends to ask the City Council to establish a forum through which the divers and others can participate in the Water Utilities Department’s sewage treatment planning. He said he will also ask for assurances that any waiver application to the EPA come up for another public hearing and public scrutiny before it can be filed.

“After years of poor performance, we have a lack of trust in the city,” Olsen said. He said his group, which claims to represent 10,000 divers in the county, would support the outfall extension if the city would drop its other requests to exempt the Point Loma kelp bed from state bacterial standards.

Meanwhile, a fishermen-backed group called the National Coalition for Marine Conservation on Thursday began mailing a four-page “fact sheet” on the controversy to members of the City Council, the press and the public. The San Diego-based group has favored upgrading to secondary treatment elsewhere, but it has not taken a position on the Point Loma plant.

Carl Nettleton, the group’s president, said one major purpose of the document is to point out how little information exists on the impact of ocean disposal of sewage. Questions that remain unanswered include effects on fish moving through the area, effects on human health and effects on San Diego’s economy.

Finally, officials of the Sierra Club faulted the city manager’s report for failing to address alternative approaches to sewage treatment that might allow water reclamation. They said they intend on Tuesday to propose a system of smaller decentralized plants in which water could be recycled and transported back to the community for reuse.