Cities Crying Foul at L.A. Proposal to Restrict Sewage

Westside city officials are both angry and confused about a proposed ordinance going before the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday that would impose strict limits on the amount of sewage cities other than Los Angeles could ship to the overburdened Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant.

Restrictions on the amount of sewage a city can generate could limit future development.

The emergency measure, one of three council proposals that would govern the amount of sewage that could be shipped to Hyperion, is the only one that would limit increases in the amount of sewage generated by cities other than Los Angeles. The plan calls for the 26 sanitation districts and cities that share Hyperion with Los Angeles to pay fines as high as $10,000 a day for violating sewage limits set by the ordinance. The treatment plant is managed by the City of Los Angeles.

The proposal allows only the City of Los Angeles to exempt itself from the limits.

Impact Uncertain

Officials in Westside cities are uncertain how the proposed limits would affect growth in the area and are upset that they were not consulted about the proposal. Many cities that would be affected by the proposal did not find out about it until last Monday, officials said.

“We do not think we should be in a situation that is more restrictive than what Los Angeles requires of themselves,” said Santa Monica Mayor James P. Conn. “If Los Angeles can vote exemptions, we ought to be able to.

“I think the way they (Los Angeles officials) have gone about this is hypocritical and irresponsible,” he said.

Culver City officials are still calculating how growth would be affected under the complex formula limiting increases in sewage sent to Hyperion.

“We are still researching the impact,” said Dale Jones, Culver City’s chief administrative officer.

West Hollywood’s director of public works, Chuck Bergson, said, “We might have to slow down (development) by about 20%.”

Beverly Hills officials could not be reached late last week for comment.

The ordinance is designed to limit the 26 districts and cities that use the sewage facilities to a 1-million-gallon increase in their daily sewage flow over the course of a year. Los Angeles would reserve for itself an increase in its daily sewage flow of 5 million to 6 million gallons over a year.

If adopted, the emergency ordinance would restrict increases in the amount of sewage after July 1 for 270 days. The council could increase that by another 180 days while it works out a long-term plan to govern increases in sewage flow to Los Angeles’ overburdened treatment system.

Los Angeles is rapidly running out of sewage capacity. The ordinance states that 440 million gallons of the 480-million-gallon-per-day capacity of the city’s treatment system is already taken. And daily sewage flow has increased by about 10 million gallons every year.

The area may face a a shortage of capacity by 1991, when an 80-million-gallon-per-day expansion of the system is expected to be completed.

“What we are trying to do is put a stopgap measure into place to take care of the most immediate problem,” said Rick Ruiz, press deputy for City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter. “Over a period of time, the city will draft a more permanent, long-range solution to take them through that time when the sewage system will be remodeled and brought up to standards.”

In the meantime, there is uncertainty over the impact the emergency measure would have on the rate of new development, which means additional revenue for the cities in new property taxes.

“This is in some ways viewed as a moratorium (on development),” said John Jalili, city manager for Santa Monica.

“There are significant financial impacts associated with this,” he said. “It could affect our budget a lot, but it is hard to quantify it on short notice,” he said.