Pollution of Mission Bay Must Halt, City Is Told

In their latest effort to improve the performance of San Diego’s beleaguered sewage system, state water quality officials on Monday ordered the city to develop a detailed plan to prevent future sewage spills into Mission Bay.

After a brief public hearing, the Regional Water Quality Control Board voted unanimously to issue a cease-and-desist order directing city officials to prepare a report and timetable for upgrading the aging network of pumps and pipes that ring the bay.

The board’s action came after a staff engineer reported that 73 spills have occurred at the popular aquatic waterway since 1980, prompting closure of all or portions of the bay for a total of 714 days--or 27% of the time--during that period.

Violates Discharge Permit

The report by water board engineer David Barker said that such spills represent “an unacceptable impairment of both the water quality and beneficial uses of Mission Bay” and constitute a violation of the city’s waste discharge permit.

Staff members also noted that contamination of the bay could have been avoided in 82% of the spills had city officials taken measures to maintain and upgrade the system prior to 1980.

On a related issue, board members delayed action against the city for a March spill from the notorious Sorrento Valley pump station that dumped nearly 21 million gallons of raw sewage into Los Penasquitos Lagoon.

That spill, caused by a break in a corroded sewer main apparently triggered by a series of power failures, was one of the largest in state history. It prompted county health authorities to quarantine both the scenic wetland, which is frequented by numerous endangered birds, and nearby Torrey Pines State Beach for 11 days.

It also marked the 60th spill from Pump Station 64, which serves the booming North City area, in seven years.

In January, the board fined the city $1.5 million--the highest administrative penalty of its kind ever imposed in the state--for a Thanksgiving Day breakdown at the pump station that spilled 1.5 million gallons of untreated sewage into the lagoon.

But $1.3 million of the penalty was suspended, contingent on the city’s successful prevention of additional spills from the pumping station. Under terms of the fine, the city was left liable for a maximum of $800,000 in additional penalties if another spill should occur.

Proposed Fine Stuns Critics

On Monday, the board’s staff presented a report on the most recent spill and, in a move that stunned critics of San Diego’s record on sewage management in the city’s northern quadrant, recommended a fine of $50,000--well below the possible $800,000.

Barker said several factors played into his decision to recommend the $50,000 figure, including the city’s ongoing, $21-million project to replace pipelines and make other improvements at the station.

“We considered the city’s quick response to the spill and the fact that the negative effects of the sewage on the lagoon were mitigated because the lagoon mouth was opened,” Barker said. “Also, the city has already paid or will pay significant (fines) of about $341,000 and we decided to give them some credit for that.”

Penalty Called Appropriate

Board members seemed to agree that $50,000 was an appropriate penalty, despite protests by Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield that the spill was “a freak accident” and that San Diego bore no responsibility for it.

But rather than impose the fine, which would have sent the money to a Sacramento fund for statewide cleanup and abatement projects, board members agreed that they wanted to keep the dollars in San Diego for improvements to the lagoon.

On a unanimous vote, members directed the city to work out an agreement with the Los Penasquitos Lagoon Foundation or another organization that could use the fine money to reopen the lagoon mouth and take other measures to remedy damage from the spill. The matter will come before the water board again in June.

Local residents and lagoon advocates reacted to the action with dismay.

“Neither the city nor the regional board realizes the magnitude of the problem at Pump Station 64,” said Lynn Benn, chairwoman of the Torrey Pines Planning Group. “The board is like a parent who keeps threatening to punish a child but never does. Pretty soon, the child stops listening.”

Report Due by July 15

Meanwhile, the board’s order on Mission Bay requires the city to submit by July 15 a detailed report on what sort of improvements are planned for preventing sewage from seeping into the bay.

According to Barker’s report, the 73 spills resulting in closure of the bay over the last seven years have been caused by root and grease blockages of pipelines, sewer line breaks, manhole collapses and breaks in the berms surrounding sludge beds on Fiesta Island.

The report noted that most of the spills--the largest of which closed part of the bay for 113 days--could have been avoided if city officials had been aggressive on the problem before 1980.

The cease-and-desist order is designed to hold the city to specified “milestone” dates for replacing 60-year-old concrete pipelines in Mission Beach and Pacific Beach, constructing an interceptor system designed to catch errant sewage and pump it back into the system, and installing flow recorders to identify trouble spots.

“We feel the city is making progress and we have high hopes,” Barker said. “We just felt this order was a necessary legal step to help that process along.”

Bromfield told the board that the city was prepared to accept the order willingly and meet the time schedule. But he insisted that San Diego officials have “made substantial progress in correcting the matter already.”