Advertisement

Avalon Officials Upset by Sewage Discharge Fine

Share
Times Staff Writer

Officials in Avalon are upset over what they called a “grossly unfair” fine of $35,000 levied against the city for sewage discharge violations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, even though the fine is less than the board initially recommended.

In a March evidentiary hearing, the board had recommended a fine of $100,000 but reduced that on appeal Monday, after considering the city’s ability to pay and Avalon officials’ stated intent to keep the Avalon waste treatment plant in compliance, said David Gildersleeve, the board’s supervising engineer.

The fine was levied despite explanations by city officials in March and on Monday that mechanical failures and employee turnover contributed to violations of the city’s sewage discharge permit at the plant in November and December of 1988.

Advertisement

Before the Monday session, city officials had offered a compromise settlement of $20,000 to the board, including $10,000 in penalties and $10,000 in staff costs, City Manager Chuck Prince said.

“We think the facts indicated a much lower fine or no fine at all would have been reasonable,” Prince said.

The board’s staff had recommended that it accept the $20,000 offer, Gildersleeve said, but the board felt the city had been noncompliant about half the time during the two-month period in 1988 and wanted to ensure the city adequately monitors its plant.

The $35,000 fine is at the higher end of the $2,000-to-$40,000 range for fines levied by the board for first offenses by other cities and other public agencies with waste treatment violations, Gildersleeve said. The board began levying such fines in 1985, he said.

Avalon officials said the $35,000 fine is too high for their small city.

Prince said the board did not adequately take into account either the small size of the Santa Catalina Island city, which has a population of about 2,200, or the city’s ability to pay.

Gildersleeve said the city has 30 days to appeal the regional board’s decision before the state Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento.

Advertisement

City officials said a decision on whether to appeal would have to weigh the cost of it against any benefit.

Mayor Hugh T. (Bud) Smith said the city is “not going to spend $50,000 (in legal fees) to get $35,000 back.”

Smith called the fine “an excuse for a big entity to jump on a little entity. I thought that they didn’t listen to the facts and rationale and reasons behind the (excessive) discharge. I think the fine was excessive and the reason why the fine was even levied was unreasonable and unfair.”

Officials in Avalon have maintained that the waste treatment plant has been in compliance except for two occasions when machinery broke down, and for several weeks in December, 1988, when a Gardena waste treatment management firm--Operations Consultants Inc.--permanently took over operation of the plant from the city, resulting in a period of high employee turnover.

The plant underwent a three-year expansion, completed in October, 1988, which increased its capacity from 500,000 to 1.2 million gallons a day, Prince said. “To demonstrate a good faith effort to the board,” the city began making $80,000 in repairs and improvements to the plant after the March hearing, Prince said.

The plant is one of the few in the country that uses saltwater in the waste treatment process, which requires more careful monitoring than in fresh water plants, city officials said.

Advertisement

A board report in March stated that the plant did not meet permit requirements on 29 days in November and December, 1988, when levels of suspended solid waste or biochemical oxygen demand exceeded amounts allowed in the permit.

The permit allows for sewage discharge with an average of 20 milligrams of biochemical oxygen-demand per liter per month, and 30 milligrams of suspended solid wastes per liter per month, board engineers said. These levels were exceeded sometimes by a small amount and sometimes by 100%, according to the engineers.

Biochemical oxygen demand is a measure of the amount of oxygen needed to break down sewage, board officials said. A higher oxygen-demand level deprives the water of oxygen, which is needed to sustain marine life. Suspended solid measures actual wastes in the discharge.

The city and the board separately monitor discharge levels at the plant.

Advertisement