Local News in Brief : Sewage Violations Cited

Treated sewage pumped into outer Los Angeles Harbor has been violating state health limits on contamination at times during the last month and may continue through this weekend, City of Los Angeles sanitation officials said Thursday.

Suspected discharges from industries on Terminal Island and elsewhere in the vicinity of the Port of Los Angeles are being investigated as the cause, said Norm Hanson, manager of the city’s Terminal Island sewage treatment plant.

About 20 million gallons a day of effluent are pumped into the harbor from the Terminal Island plant after being treated with bacteria that consume the human waste in raw sewage that threatens health. The bacterial process, called secondary treatment, allows the effluent to meet state health limits for discharge to the ocean.

Hanson said industrial waste from a nearby plant appears to be killing the bacteria used to purify the raw sewage.

Meanwhile, the beaches at Avalon Harbor reopened Thursday after tests showed the water safe for swimming after a leak of raw sewage from an overloaded pumping station there.