Sewage-Tainted Coastal Strip May Reopen Today

The Laguna Beach coastal strip closed last weekend by a sewage spill was nearly doubled as a precaution on Tuesday, but county health officials predicted the entire area would probably be reopened to bathers sometime today.

A ban on swimming along a 400-yard stretch of sand near Sleepy Hollow Lane has been in effect since Sunday after 36,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the ocean south of the city’s Main Beach. Officials blamed the spill on a power outage, which caused a pump at an auxiliary sewer transfer station to fail.

The area posted off limits to swimmers was extended by 300 yards on Tuesday after higher surf Monday night spread the potentially contaminated water north toward Main Beach, said Robert Merryman, director of the county Health Care Agency’s environmental health division.

Swimming along a half-mile stretch has now been restricted, from Thalia Street to south Main Beach, city lifeguard Chris Daniels said.

“It was a precautionary move,” Merryman said. “We took new water samples, but we fully expect that the whole area will be open” by this afternoon, he added.

Results of the first water samples taken Monday to test for bacteria should be complete later today. Because of the recent heavy surf and natural tidal action, Merryman said that any threat to bathers and surfers from the sewage should have dissipated by then.

The sewer line in that area carries household sewage by gravity, Merryman said. It is then carried laterally to a pump station, where it is moved up to the main line on Coast Highway.

Because of the pump failure, the sewage overflowed at the pump station and flowed onto the beach.

Daniels said most swimmers have obeyed the warnings and stayed out of the water, although some surfers, attracted by 4-foot swells, had to be ordered from the water.

“Generally most folks were understanding,” said Daniels, who blamed Tuesday’s below-average weekday summer crowd on the thick overcast, not the swimming ban. “It didn’t get sunny until about 3 this afternoon.”