Beach Still Closed After New Laguna Sewage Spill

About a quarter-mile of Laguna Beach’s shoreline remained closed Tuesday because of a 12,000-gallon sewage spill caused by a power outage on Sunday.

The stretch of beach south of downtown between Legion and Thalia streets, a popular surfing and swimming area, was quarantined Sunday afternoon after pumps shut down at a Cleo Street station and spilled raw sewage into the sea. It was the second sewage spill in recent weeks along Laguna’s coast.

Robert Merryman, county director of environmental health, said if test results show the bacterial levels are safe, the beach could be reopened as early as this afternoon.

Signs Posted on Beach

“Its 50-50 it will remain closed. . . . But because of tidal action, most likely the beach will be open for the weekend,” Merryman said.

Signs have been posted along the beach warning of the contaminated water, which could cause serious intestinal ailments if swallowed, he said.

“Thalia Street is popular for surfing, and Cleo Street is popular with swimmers,” Laguna Beach lifeguard Mark Sproull said. “Some of the surfers are upset. It has happened a few times, so they’re getting a little tired of this.”

Sunday’s electrical outage caused pumps to fail at eight shorefront stations in Laguna Beach. Spills under 500 gallons were reported at the Irvine Cove Drive and McKnight Drive pump stations, but neither resulted in a beach closure, City Engineer Ross Cox said.

The power failure occurred at about 2:15 p.m., when a car struck a utility pole guy wire at Linden Street and Monterey Drive, causing power lines to wrap around themselves, Steve Sullivan, a Southern California Edison Co. spokesman said.

The power outage, which extended from Emerald Bay to Thalia Street, caused a huge traffic snarl on Coast Highway as traffic lights failed. It also left about 2,200 Edison customers without power for about two hours.

23 Pump Stations

A backup pump prevented an overflow at Main Beach. But the city is expecting delivery in the next month of a portable generator to help avert sewage spills during future power outages, Cox said.

Cox said there are 23 pump stations in Laguna Beach, many near the coast, and that they move sewage from lower elevations up hills toward the treatment plant at Aliso Creek.

On June 22, a much larger spill, caused by a break in an aging South Coast Water District pipeline, spewed 900,000 gallons of raw sewage at Aliso Beach in South Laguna. For a week a one-mile stretch of Aliso Beach was closed. Most of the beach has now been reopened, but Merryman said a 1,000-foot section at the mouth of Aliso Creek still shows high contamination and will remained closed until bacteria levels return to normal.