Board Blames L.A. for Sewage Spills, Asks Legal Action

Less Los Angeles sewage has found its way into Santa Monica Bay this year than any time in three decades, but that was not enough Monday to stop the state Regional Water Quality Control Board from leveling new charges at the city.

The board asked Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp to seek damages from Los Angeles for seven spills of raw sewage in Pacific Palisades last fall. About 94,500 gallons of sewage spilled onto Pacific Coast Highway and adjacent beaches in the incidents.

If Van de Kamp agrees, the new charges would be added to a lawsuit filed against Los Angeles last year at the board’s request. The suit, which is still pending, accused Los Angeles sanitation officials of allowing three major illegal sewage discharges last spring, including a spill of up to 2.4 million gallons of raw sewage into the Esplanade Canal in Venice. The Venice spill is blamed for a continued fouling of a beach in Marina del Rey.

Significant Source

All of the spills occurred before Los Angeles stopped pumping sewage sludge in the Pacific Dec. 2, ending 30 years of sludge disposal at sea from the Hyperion sewage treatment plant near Playa del Rey. Nearly 400,000 gallons a day of partly treated liquid waste are still pumped into the sea off Playa del Rey, but the sludge was considered by many scientists to be a more significant contaminant of bay waters.

The sea floor where the sludge was dumped has been denuded of all life except for an unusual species of worm and a rare form of clam with no stomach. The city is sponsoring a study by scientists who are eager to see how the ocean bottom recovers from such environmental damage.

Federal law barred the sludge dumping for several years before Los Angeles finally stopped the discharges. The city paid a $625,000 fine last year for violating the law, and was only able to stop the dumping in December by hauling the sludge to landfills.

City officials hope eventually to burn the sludge in a $400-million high-tech co-generation system now undergoing testing at Hyperion. But the co-generation plant, the Hyperion Energy Recovery System, is several years behind schedule. It recently suffered another delay when a spinning turbine disintegrated and caused serious damage.

Power Failures

The state board alleged Monday that the city was responsible for the seven Pacific Palisades spills, all of which were attributed to power failures at pumping stations. When the pumping stations lose power, waste in a sewer trunk line that parallels the beach from the Palisades to Hyperion backs up. If the power is out too long, the sewage is allowed to back up onto the street or into storm drains that flow across the beach in order to minimize damage to the pumping station, city officials said.

All of the spills cited occurred after Mayor Tom Bradley ordered the city Bureau of Sanitation to install backup electrical generators, but before the promised generators were actually in place. In some cases it took five months for the generators to be installed.

The board gave the city credit, however, for prompt action to clean up the spilled sewage and treat the contaminated area with chlorine.

In all, raw sewage spilled at least 259 times from the Los Angeles sewer system from June 7 to Feb. 29, the state board’s staff reported. However, all but the seven spills named in the action Monday were minor or resulted from forces outside the city’s control, the staff said.

The state board decided against a recommendation by its staff that Los Angeles also face a damage suit for an incident July 17, when 625,000 gallons of “secondary effluent,” a higher grade of discharge, was released too close to shore from Hyperion. The sewage, which was diverted out the plant’s one-mile discharge pipe instead of the customary five-mile outfall, had been chlorinated as required when such diversions occur.