Pursuit of Sewer Waiver Persists : McColl Seeks 11th-Hour Reprieve Despite Deadline, Fine

San Diego Deputy Mayor Gloria McColl, stepping up efforts to reinitiate the city’s quest for a waiver from federal sewage-treatment requirements, Wednesday asked top city officials for a report on how the city might win an eleventh-hour exemption.

McColl, noting that the city of San Francisco was granted a sewage-treatment waiver July 7, also asked city lobbyists to investigate what kind of action would be needed in Congress or at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to win a waiver for the city.

The lobbyists, as well as City Atty. John Witt and City Manager John Lockwood, will report back to the council’s Public Services and Safety committee, which McColl heads, on Sept. 7.

‘Viable Alternatives’

“I believe there are viable alternatives to secondary treatment,” McColl said in a memo to Mayor Maureen O’Connor. “We should not simply accept the mandate of the federal government without defending our position.”

The city’s sewage treatment woes accelerated July 27 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Regional Water Quality Control Board sued San Diego for failing to comply with the federal Clean Water Act. That legislation required all cities that discharge waste into oceans and waterways to upgrade sewage treatment to so-called “secondary treatment” by July 1.

City officials say San Diego cannot hope to have a secondary-treatment system working before the turn of the century and would have to spend $1.5 billion or more to do so, a price tag that could quadruple monthly bills for the region’s 1.5 million sewer users.

The city abandoned its plans for a secondary system in early 1981 when it wrongly concluded that the EPA would give it a permanent exemption from the federal sewage standards. In February, 1987, the council gave up fighting for a waiver at O’Connor’s urging. The mayor said she was promised federal financial assistance for the project--help that did not materialize.

In March of this year, the city hired a consultant for $9.5 million to begin planning the system.

‘Need Some Breathing Room’

“We need some breathing room,” McColl said. The consultants have told the city that it will take 39 months just to outline the city’s options in upgrading its sewage treatment.

McColl first mentioned reopening the waiver bid Tuesday and received support for the idea from council members Ed Struiksma and Bruce Henderson.

“I think there are some very serious questions that have to be raised about why San Francisco received a waiver and San Diego did not,” Struiksma said. “Why didn’t our staff tell us what was going on in San Francisco? Why didn’t we hear about that until after the lawsuit was filed by the EPA?”

Despite such sentiments, McColl’s idea met with strong opposition both Tuesday and Wednesday from O’Connor, a frequent ally of the deputy mayor.

“We can’t postpone this project any longer,” O’Connor said. “We have to face the problem. . . . I don’t think going for a waiver is realistic at this point. We don’t need a waiver. What we need is time and money.”

Waiver Called Doubtful

City lawyers and Harry Seraydarian, director of EPA’s water-management division, have also said that the city could not now obtain a waiver.

O’Connor and the city manager’s office maintain that San Francisco was able to win an EPA waiver because that city already treats about 80% of its sewage at the secondary level, which removes up to 90% of solids from effluent. In contrast, San Diego has an entirely “advanced primary” system, which removes about 75% of the solids.

But aides to McColl argued that San Francisco’s waiver is for the sewage it dumps into the ocean without secondary treatment, a situation that is similar to the city’s dumping of its effluent off Point Loma.