EPA Chief Rejects Bid to Meet on the Need for New San Diego Sewage Plant

William Reilly, the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has rebuffed efforts to arrange a meeting between himself and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists who believe that a $2.5 billion-upgrade of the city’s sewage-treatment system mandated by federal law is unnecessary.

At a City Council session Monday, Councilman Bruce Henderson raised the possibility of a meeting between the scientists and the top official at the EPA, which has sued the city to enforce a federal Clean Water Act provision that the city install a “secondary” sewage-treatment system. That system would remove more solids from effluent than the city’s current “advanced primary” system.

Henderson said he had been told by Burr Keen, a member of the environmental group Citizens Coordinate--Century III, that Reilly might be interested in meeting with the scientists. Keen said he had received that information from two high-level EPA staffers.

At Henderson’s urging, Sen. Pete Wilson’s staff also has been attempting to arrange such a meeting, possibly for late July, to brief the new EPA chief on the scientists’ position that city sewage discharges are not harming ocean life, according to Wilson spokeswoman Linda Schuler.

But David Cohen, a spokesman for Reilly said “the simple fact is that (Reilly) is not meeting with that group and will not.” Cohen added that Reilly has no plans to be in San Diego in the near future.

Most Expensive Project

The EPA suit demands that the city set a schedule for construction of the sewage plant, which will be the most expensive public works project in city history, and pay fines for past sewage spills. City leaders have been demanding that the federal government help pay for the project and Monday delayed action on a 47% increase in residential sewer rates to fund part of it.

Locally, sentiment on the council grew Monday that the costly project is unnecessary. Councilman Bob Filner, known as an environmentalist, Monday joined Henderson in opposing the utility increases and demanding an alternative to the costly upgrade.

At a May 30 news conference, several Scripps scientists declared that the sewage upgrade would be a waste of money.

“When you look at $4 billion, that is a staggering amount of money for what is an utterly trivial non-problem,” Paul Dayton, a Scripps professor and marine ecologist who has been studying plants and animals in kelp beds near the current sewage outfall, said at the news conference. “It’s a monumental waste of important funds.”

At Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s urging, the city gave up its quest for a waiver from the Clean Water Act in 1987. On July 1, 1988, the deadline for compliance passed, and the EPA sued later that month to enforce the law. Though the EPA must enforce the Clean Water Act, settlement negotiations in the lawsuit continue.