San Diego, U.S. Hit Impasse on Massive Sewage-System Job

Crucial negotiations between San Diego attorneys and two federal agencies over a massive sewage-treatment project are at an “impasse,” stalled by the Environmental Protection Agency’s insistence that the city agree to a specific date when it will start up the system, a city attorney said Thursday.

Also undecided is how much the EPA will fine the city for past sewage spills, principally into Mission Bay, said Ted Bromfield, a chief deputy city attorney and leader of San Diego’s negotiating team.

No negotiating sessions are scheduled before next Friday’s deadline, when the EPA and the Justice Department could sue San Diego in federal court for failing to reach agreement on a “consent decree” that would detail how and when the city will upgrade its sewage-treatment system, Bromfield said.

Other Options

Bromfield said the deadlock does not necessarily mean that San Diego will find itself the target of a costly federal lawsuit. The EPA and Justice Department have other options, including an administrative order for the city to move to secondary sewage treatment.

EPA officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Bromfield said he plans to brief San Diego City Council members at a closed-door meeting of the San Diego City Council Thursday in hopes of winning approval for “negotiating alternatives.” He declined to comment on what those tactics might be.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, the city was required to install a secondary treatment system--which removes 85% to 90% of suspended solids from sewage--by July 1, a deadline it could not hope to meet. Late last month, the federal agencies extended the consent decree deadline to July 15.

The council has agreed to move to secondary sewage treatment by building a $1.5-billion treatment system that has been described as the largest public works project ever undertaken by the city. A consulting firm, hired for more than $10 million, is now in the early planning stages of that project.

75% of Solids Removed

The city’s existing “advanced primary” treatment system removes 75% of suspended solids from sewage in the metropolitan system.

The cost of building the system could push the average sewer bill from $10 to about $40 during the next three to five years, city officials have said. But Mayor Maureen O’Connor has pledged to “go to jail” for not signing a consent decree before allowing the full cost of a new system to be born by local sewer users without federal assistance.

The EPA is insisting on a construction timetable and a specific date when the city would begin secondary treatment of its sewage, a standard that is impossible for the city to meet because it is so early in the planning process, Bromfield said.

City officials have said that it will take more than three years just for the consultants to outline the city’s options for reaching secondary treatment.

“We’re at an impasse right now, principally on whether or not to include a final construction schedule and turn-on date in the consent decree,” Bromfield said. “That’s just impossible for the city . . . . There are so many variables.”

The city also faces fines that could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, or be forced to spend that sum on a water quality improvement project, city lawyers have said. Bromfield refused to discuss the size of the proposed fines, but said that disagreement over them remains one of the issues separating the two sides.