The Big Spill--Victims Ruffled by Raw and Odor

It was business as usual in Sorrento Valley the day after a 10-foot geyser of sewage erupted from a gaping hole in the main sewer pipe connecting the northern sector of San Diego, from Rancho Bernardo to the ocean, to the sewage plant on the tip of Point Loma.

Thousands of gallons of raw sewage cascaded down embankments and in some cases spewed into parking lots of high-tech businesses.

On Friday, reddish-brown slime coated the pavement and sidewalks along Roselle Street, a reminder of the flood of foaming sewage that washed down the street, lapping up on the bright green lawns and creating brick-colored scalloped edges.

A shiny lunch wagon drew knots of office workers and cleanup crews as it made its customary rounds Friday, but the proprietor (she didn’t want to give her name) admitted that Thursday’s crowds weren’t as numerous. “The smell, I guess,” she said.

Taking the brunt of the sewer line break was Curtis Technology Inc., a think tank on the floor of the finger canyon directly below the spot where the 36-inch-diameter sewer line exploded Thursday morning. Twenty-four hours later, a cleanup crew using sprays, a motorized scrubber and shovels was restoring the Curtis parking lot to normalcy and sending the mud and muck bubbling down through the storm drain openings and into the gutters.

Inside the building, office manager Dak Sha admitted that the 27 Curtis staff members had not yet turned their concentration back to business and away from the smelly catastrophe outside.

“Of course, we all rushed out to see what had happened,” she said of Thursday’s inundation, “and now the rugs are a mess.”

Matters may get back to normal by Monday, she added, “but I’m not holding my breath.”

Lynn Benn, whose Del Mar Heights home stands at a commanding height overlooking Los Penasquitos Lagoon, ventured down to the wetlands Friday for a closer look. Her prediction: “We are going to be suffering the effects of this spill for a long, long time.”

The sewage flowed into the lagoon through storm drains and natural creeks, adding excessive nutrients to the already ailing lagoon waters, she said.

“I am afraid that we are in for another algae bloom this summer,” she said.

Algae bloom is a far cry from the flowery title it carries, Benn said.

“It looks like ugly brown bubbles oozing up and belly-up fish floating on top,” she said. It occurs because of pollution from sewage spills and toxic chemical intrusions.

An algae bloom in Penasquitos Lagoon last summer brought hard times to the restaurants and other businesses along its edge on Carmel Valley Road. The reek of decaying fish and the sting of persistent mosquitoes kept patrons away in droves.

Benn, a rabid growth-control advocate, said: “This pay-as-you-grow theory just isn’t working. It’s a dismal failure. And Pump Station 64 is the most visible proof of that. We are building for a massive environmental disaster.”