Laguna Shore May Reopen Today After Check on Spill

Nearly a mile of Laguna Beach shoreline, closed last weekend when a million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the ocean, may reopen today to swimmers and surfers.

Robert E. Merryman, county director of environmental health, said water samples showed “some sewage in the ocean” but that there was little if any threat to human health. A final decision on whether to reopen the beach, from the north end of Main Beach to Cleo Street, will be made today after more samples are taken, Merryman said.

The spill was one of the largest in county history. Raw sewage apparently began flowing late Saturday or early Sunday through a pipe that extends 3,100 feet to sea off the end of Broadway at Main Beach. That pipe had been abandoned but kept on standby status after a larger pipeline was completed in 1978 down the coast at Aliso Beach. The newer pipeline dumps the sewage 8,000 feet from shore.

Ray Miller, general manager of the South Coast County Water District, said the spill resulted from an electrical failure at a pump station directly across from the Festival of Arts grounds on Laguna Canyon Road.

System Constantly Monitored

The pump is part of a system that normally carries sewage to a plant in Aliso Canyon where it is treated before being released through the larger and newer pipeline next to the Aliso Beach pier.

Miller said the system is monitored constantly “both by personnel and by automation,” and that a worker discovered the electrical problem at the pump station just before noon Sunday.

“He replaced a fuse and called an electrician to work on the panel board,” Miller said. “Neither man found any signs of a spill at the site and neither man knew that when a failure occurred raw sewage was automatically diverted to the old outfall at Laguna Beach.”

He said the faulty fuse also cut off an automatic alarm that would have warned of the incident.

Miller said Merryman’s office was not notified of the spill until Monday, when “the situation was analyzed,” including the fact that the two men who worked on the pump didn’t know of the diversion arrangement.

He said the pump station is being completely rewired to avoid a repeat situation.

Dr. Thomas J. Prendergast, county epidemiologist, said water contaminated with sewage, if ingested, can cause diarrhea and, if the contamination is serious, even hepatitis.

But Prendergast said there have been no reports of diarrhea from swimmers since the spill. County health officials will remain alert for an increase of diarrhea cases in the Laguna area for the next week or so until the spill can fully disperse itself.

“We would not expect anything more serious at this point,” Prendergast said.

Miller said that there will have been two complete tidal changes to help dispersal of the sewage by today and that chances of sewage threatening other county beach areas were minimal.

“Based on past experience, it seems to me the beaches can open some time Wednesday, and almost certainly before the Memorial Day weekend, unless there’s another incident,” he said.

Other Major Spills

The spill, although one of the largest, differed from others in Orange County in that sewage was dumped more than half a mile offshore.

By contrast, more than a million gallons of raw sewage flowed directly onto beach areas at Seal Beach in November of 1987 from a broken line in Fullerton. In December, 1985, a 1,000-foot stretch of Newport Beach was closed for a week when 200,000 gallons of sewage escaped from a pipeline in Costa Mesa. And last July, Cleo Street Beach in Laguna was off limits to swimmers for several days after an electric power failure shut down a nearby pump station.

Laguna Beach Lifeguard Lt. Mike Dwinell said that beach crowds were about normal Tuesday and that only a few people went into the water, ignoring the warning signs posted on the beach.

“We just got them out of the water and told them to go a half mile north or a half mile south of the closed area,” he said.

Laguna Beach hotels, which have been booked for weeks for the Memorial Day weekend, reported a few inquiries about the spill but no cancellations.

“It smells a little bit, but we haven’t had any complaints,” said Lori Noll, a desk clerk at the oceanfront Hotel Laguna.

Betsy Falzone, reservation clerk for Vacation Village hotel, said people still were calling Tuesday trying to get reservations for the weekend.

“People are still enjoying the beach,” Falzone said. “It has been lovely all day, right around 70 degrees.”

Gary Bosley, manager of the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, said he was confident the spillage would be gone by Memorial Day, the official start of the summer tourist season.