Expansion of County Sewer System Could Hit $3 Billion

It could cost Orange County households up to $200 each to expand the county’s current sewage system to handle and treat waste water so that it meets federal clean water goals, sanitation officials said this week.

That would be the cost if the county spends the $3 billion that some officials say might be necessary to completely upgrade the system. Officials of the Sanitation Districts of Orange County said a $3-billion sewage treatment system would not require renewal of the county’s special U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exemption permit.

That permit expires in 1990 and has allowed the county to remove 75% of the solid particles from its waste water, instead of 85% as required by federal environmental regulations. Most of the other approximately 70 such permits nationwide are for small Eskimo villages in Alaska or fishing ports in New England.

Blake Anderson, director of technical services for the Sanitation Districts, told a “Special Meeting on Orange County’s Sewage Dilemma” gathering in Irvine that this summer’s public outcry against beach pollution on the East Coast, combined with other factors, will make the EPA’s renewal of the permit doubtful.

The EPA is already routinely denying such renewals, Anderson said.

Lack of Information

Don Owen, a board member of the Orange County Water District, lamented the absence of information comparing what “a billion dollars gets you in water quality versus a billion dollars for transportation” or other worthwhile projects, including housing for the homeless and AIDS research.

Anderson acknowledged that the money could help solve a lot of other problems, but added that the current sewage treatment system must expand just to handle future population growth, let alone meet clean water standards.

Jack Anderson (no relation to Blake Anderson), director of the Southern California Coastal Research Project, a group financed partly by the sewage treatment industry, told Thursday’s meeting that there is a 2.5-square-mile area of ocean floor that is slightly affected by the county’s main waste water outfall pipe. The pipe deposits the waste water 5 miles off shore. But Anderson said the amount of pollutants found in organisms there are well below federal limits.

The runoff from rainstorms is much more dangerous to wildlife and humans, officials said, and there are no immediate plans to treat such runoff. “It’s not very safe to swim in the ocean right after a storm,” Jack Anderson said.

Efforts must be made to control runoff pollutants at their residential and industrial sources, officials added.

Caution Offered

Doug Rogers, a Sierra Club water task force member, cautioned that although Orange County’s ocean discharge is cleaner than the waste water pumped into the sea by other urban counties, officials here must consider cumulative effects of all types of ocean pollution and prevent it as much as possible.

Three months ago, the Sanitation Districts announced plans to hold a series of public workshops on the problem similar to the one held in Irvine. Then sometime next year, after the workshops have ended, sanitation officials will propose a 10-year construction program. The problem, officials say, is that various options pose a series of costly trade-offs.

For example, if the $3-billion system is built, it would nearly double energy consumption, from the equivalent of 16,000 households daily to 30,000 households. Sewage treatment procedures also result in air pollution, and such emissions would increase even with installation of the most up-to-date equipment, officials said.

Also, more sludge--the solids that remain after sewage is filtered and treated--must be trucked away. All of the landfill sites now available will be filled to capacity by 1995.

Currently, the Sanitation Districts, in which 87%, or 1.9 million, of the county’s residents live, handle about 575 tons, or 35 truckloads, of sludge per day. Meeting EPA treatment standards would result in 70 to 75 truckloads, officials estimate.

Recycling of Sludge

About half of the sludge is now recycled and used for agriculture or composting. By next year, the amount of waste water that is recycled will increase from the current 15 million gallons per day to 30 million gallons. The entire sewage system handles 250 million gallons per day.

A less ambitious expansion of the sewage treatment system, officials said, could cost about $1.5 billion, but may still require special EPA exemption permits.

Mary Jane Foster of San Juan Capistrano, who serves on the Regional Water Quality Control Board that oversees water quality from Laguna Beach to San Clemente, told the conference that officials probably will have to propose a $3-billion treatment system because of the public’s perception, right or wrong, that local waters are polluted.

“You’re never going to change that public opinion,” she said, no matter what scientists may say about the environmental safety of the Sanitation Districts’ ocean discharges.