Flip of Switch to End City’s Red Face Over Pump Station

Celebrating what they hope is the end of an era of neglect and embarrassment, San Diego city officials on Wednesday will throw a party--complete with food and entertainment--at a Sorrento Valley sewage pumping station that has undergone a $23-million overhaul.

Pump Station 64--the guest of honor, so to speak--was a recurring headache for city administrators. Since 1979, it had malfunctioned 59 times, spilling millions of gallons of raw sewage into Los Penasquitos Lagoon and drawing $350,000 in fines from state water pollution officials.

But the ill-fated station, which city officials have admitted is a symbol of municipal frustration, has now been fitted with four new 500-horsepower pumps, and the city’s Water Utilities Department is eager to use the occasion to get some good press, for a change.

Ergo, the party, complete with fancy invitations, hot dogs and hamburgers, plaques, and 100 blue T-shirts that say “Sewage Is NOT a Four-Letter Word” on the back.

“We decided to throw a picnic . . . to emphasize that Pump Station 64 is no longer an embarrassment to the city, and it’s no longer a nasty place,” said Yvonne Rehg, the water department’s spokeswoman who organized the bash.

“The purpose of the party is to, first, let everyone know that the pump station has been fixed and the city is really dedicated to eliminating sewage spills from the pump station,” she said.

“A second purpose, and an equally important purpose from the water department’s standpoint, is to thank those employees who have dedicated the last year of their lives to making the pump station work,” she added. “Our own people, our own employees . . . have completely refurbished the pump station so it doesn’t look like the facility you saw a year ago inside.”

Invitations for Wednesday’s ceremony, when the new pumps will be turned on for the first time, were sent to 100 people, including the City Council and members of the media. The specially made invitations declare: “Pump Station 64 has risen from the pits! The new pumps are ready to go and the sewage is ready to flow.”

After the pumps are officially turned on Wednesday, there will be entertainment by the Rich Brothers, the morning show team from KFMB-FM (B-100). They were invited to perform after they wrote a song lampooning Pump Station 64 following a recent sewage spill, Rehg said.

Then, the department will hold its first-ever picnic at a sewage pumping station.

“It really doesn’t smell too bad, but it is a strange place to have lunch, that’s true,” Rehg said.

She said Wednesday’s food costs, roughly $1,000, will be picked up by Weardco Construction Co., which built the $8.6-million addition to Pump Station 64 that houses the new pumps.

The addition and the installation of the pumps were not supposed to be finished until Nov. 15, but Weardco completed the job on Oct. 13, Rehg said. As part of its contract, the firm will receive a $320,000 bonus--$10,000 for each day it finished before the deadline.

Rehg said the water department hopes Weardco will also pick up the $900 cost for the design and printing of the invitations. The city will pay $600 for the T-shirts and $460 for 16 plaques that will go to city employees who have labored under the bad publicity caused by Pump Station 64.

“My God, we need to boost morale,” Rehg said, explaining the expenditures.

“I’d say a year ago that those employees of ours who worked at Pump Station 64 were very, very low because they had to go home and tell their neighbors that they worked at the infamous Pump Station 64 and face the embarrassment of that.”

Now, after major improvements at the pumping station, the department wants to turn that around by reminding its employees that “this is not a bad place to work,” Regh said.

Barely a year ago, Pump Station 64 was considered nothing short of a municipal mess.

Long ignored by the water department, the crucial link in the city’s sewage system was allowed to fall into disrepair and, at one point, became too small to handle the flow of effluent from the fast-growing northern regions of San Diego, Poway and Del Mar. Pump Station 64 takes in all sewage from the northern neighborhoods and sends it over some hills to the Point Loma sewage treatment plant.

State water quality officials imposed stiff fines on the city and forced officials to launch the ambitious $23-million expansion and repairs.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board fined the city $300,000 after a city employee accidentally shut down Pump Station 64 last Thanksgiving and sent 1.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Los Penasquitos Lagoon. The board imposed a $50,000 fine after a large pipe leading out of the station cracked and oozed 20.8 million gallons into the lagoon on March 5 after a power outage.

In addition, the city owes $163,000 in fines because it fell behind in its repair program, said David Barker, who works for the Water Quality Control Board.

Barker said the city was supposed to have had the new 500-horsepower pumps working by May 31 but rescheduled completion of the project until November when it was determined that an $8.6-million addition to the old station was needed. The delay triggered an automatic fine, but the city is currently appealing the $163,000 penalty to water pollution officials in Sacramento, Barker said.

The new pumps are in addition to the station’s 12 pumps and will expand station capacity from 41 million gallons to 53 million gallons a day, Rehg said.

Other major improvements at the station include an 84-inch underground pipe designed to catch any sewage spill of up to 350,000 gallons and a backup power source for the pumps.

While Wednesday will be a milestone for Pump Station 64, there is still more to do. The city must install a second large pipe, or “force main,” leading out of the station to the Point Loma facility by June.

Council members on Monday voted to spend $2.25 million to buy 15 acres adjacent to the pump station for the second force main. With the new main, the pump station’s capacity will be raised to 73 million gallons a day, Barker said.

State pollution officials have imposed a moratorium on sewage hookups in the area served by Pump Station 64, but with the operation of the new pumps, city officials are scheduled to appear before the Water Quality Control Board this month to ask that the ban be lifted, Barker said.