The State - News from Oct. 5, 1988

San Diego water pollution officials ordered Sea World to clean up the waste water it is dumping into Mission Bay--a task that officials from the amusement park say means reducing the number of flamingos and waterfowl living in its ponds. Regional Water Quality Control Board members issued the cleanup order in response to the park’s “chronic lack of compliance” with its permit for discharging wastes into the bay since March, 1986, according to a staff report. Specifically, the report cited Sea World for excessive coliform and chlorine, which have put the amusement park in violation of the permit during 15 of the last 30 months. During that period, chlorine levels in the Sea World waste water exceeded the .1 milligrams per liter limit on 26 occasions, sometimes by as much as 700%, officials said. In addition, officials said, on 16 occasions the aquatic park’s water had coliform organisms--found in animal wastes--in excess of the body contact standard of 1,000 per 100 milliliters.