Protecting Our Ocean Is a Big Responsibility

It would be hard to describe the full array of benefits those of us who live in San Diego County receive from our proximity to the Pacific Ocean. A list might begin with the uplifting feeling even a quick glimpse of it from a passing car can inspire, or the fun and recreation it provides or, perhaps, the way it fuels the area’s economy.

In return for the ocean’s bountiful beneficence, we owe it the simple courtesy of not ruining it.

The San Diego City Council currently is engaged in one of those techno-political exercises that match expert against expert and eventually will pit better protection of the ocean against the price of that protection. Or, more precisely, the council will have to weigh the cost and the benefit of upgrading its Point Loma sewage treatment plant so that the effluent it deposits in the Pacific is cleaner.

The plant now provides advanced primary treatment of the 170 million gallons it pumps daily into the ocean just beyond the Point Loma kelp beds. Federal law requires that the city upgrade the treatment to secondary in 1988 unless it succeeds in getting a variance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Having once given the city tentative approval for a variance, the EPA withdrew approval in September because the plant does not meet a new set of state bacterial standards for the area around the kelp beds and because of changes in the ocean life that the plant is believed to have caused.

The city staff is opposed to upgrading the plant because it would cost $500 million to $1 billion. The city manager and the city’s water consultants believe they can win EPA approval for a variance by pumping the sewage a mile and a half farther out to sea. That would have the benefit of moving the outfall farther away from the kelp beds, and the increased depth of the discharge and increased distance from shore would improve the dilution of contaminants.

This is a promising alternative to upgrading the Point Loma plant, which could triple the sewage rate that now averages $8 a month per residence. The city has until March 30 to reapply for a waiver of the secondary treatment requirements. Between now and then, it should work closely with the EPA in an effort to produce a plan that meets the criteria for a waiver.

But, at the City Council’s Dec. 9 hearing on the matter, Mayor Maureen O’Connor wisely made it clear to the city staff that it had better not put all its eggs in the waiver basket and should pursue with equal vigor plans to upgrade the plant for secondary treatment.

If extending the plant’s outfall will allow the city to meet the EPA standards and at the same time save millions of dollars, then it’s the obvious way to go. But if it can’t be established that this plan will adequately protect the ocean, then the city and the sewage system users must recognize their responsibility and pay for the higher level of treatment.