San Diego Faces $1.5-Million Fine for Spilling Raw Sewage Into Lagoon

State water pollution officials on Wednesday proposed an unprecedented $1.5-million fine against the City of San Diego for a Thanksgiving Day spill of 1.5 million gallons of raw sewage into an environmentally sensitive lagoon.

The penalty recommended by the staff of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board is believed by state officials to be the largest ever proposed. The second largest was a $646,800 fine imposed on San Diego last year after a 4.5-million-gallon spill from the same station.

“The discharges, we have determined, have been entirely due to negligence on the part of the city,” said David Barker, a water board staff member, in explaining the severity of the proposed fine.

”. . . This is just another example of a discharge that need not have taken place if the station had been properly operated and maintained.”

The city may challenge the penalty before the regional board at its monthly meeting Jan. 23.

The November spill was the 59th in seven years from Pump Station 64, which serves San Diego’s northern quadrant where population growth is booming. In recent months, the spills have triggered sporadic building moratoriums in the area and an $8-million program to expand and upgrade the plant.