Scientists, EPA to Debate Sewage Plant : Scripps, U.S. Officials Conflict on Need for $2.6-Billion Project

In an effort to resolve questions about the need for a planned $2.6-billion secondary sewage treatment plant in San Diego, officials of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have agreed to meet with scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in a forum here later this month.

Tentatively scheduled for Aug. 15, the meeting is intended to give Scripps scientists who contend that secondary sewage treatment is unnecessary an opportunity to present their scientific arguments to EPA officials, who consistently have argued that the city must build the plant to comply with federal water standards.

The meeting was arranged Wednesday by Mayor Maureen O’Connor and lawyer Miles Harvey, chairman of the Metropolitan Sewer Task Force, during a telephone conversation with Harry Seraydarian, the EPA’s regional director for toxics and waste management.

‘Facts on the Table’

Although O’Connor said she is doubtful that the EPA will change its position on the matter, she expressed hope that a debate between the two sides’ scientists might help to clarify the evidence supporting the conflicting conclusions about the proposed plant’s environmental merits--or lack thereof.

“I hope we can get the facts on the table and ascertain which scientists are correct,” O’Connor said.

Similarly, Harvey said he hopes that “a true comparison of the conclusions” in the meeting before members of the city’s sewer task force will help to “flesh out an issue that’s been obscured . . . by a lot of talk of political posturing.”

City Councilman Bruce Henderson, a vocal critic of the proposed plant, has more ambitious objectives for the meeting, saying he hopes to persuade the EPA to reconsider its insistence that the facility, which could double residential bills, be built.

“This is a very significant event with enormous potential,” Henderson said. “The important thing about the EPA coming here is that it gives us a chance to convince them that bad things aren’t going to happen to the ocean if we don’t go to secondary treatment.”

Throughout the protracted controversy, Dr. Roger Revelle, Scripps’ professor emeritus, and other local scientists have argued that the proposed plant is unnecessary because the sewage now discharged into the ocean from the city’s Point Loma treatment facility causes no significant problems. In fact, the sewage actually is beneficial to the ocean environment, the scientists contend.

Although the EPA has been aware of such arguments for more than a decade--and has not been deterred by them to date--Henderson said he believes that the forum “could change some minds.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything but that the EPA is coming here with an open mind,” Henderson said. “I don’t think it’s a closed matter at all. I think there’s confusion about what the issues are and what the evidence shows. That’s why this dialogue is so important. It’s a way to try to get the EPA to acquiesce and admit that there’s no credible scientific evidence for secondary treatment.”

‘Violation of the Law’

Raising doubts about the likelihood of an EPA shift, O’Connor noted that Seraydarian told her during Wednesday’s conversation: “Mayor, you’re still in violation of the law . . . as of today.” If the EPA budges at all, O’Connor said, it may simply be on the construction timetable for the proposed secondary plant.

“I think if we (have) a chance at all, it’s on the timing,” O’Connor said.

The controversy stems from the EPA’s enforcement of provisions of the Clean Water Act, which limits the amount of solids allowed in effluents pumped into the ocean.

San Diego now uses “advanced primary” sewage treatment, which removes 75% of the solids from the effluent before it is discharged about 2 1/2 miles off Point Loma. Under an EPA order that the city agreed to in 1987 when it abandoned a six-year fight for an exemption, secondary treatment measures would increase the amount of solids removed to 85% to 90%.

Local scientists and others, however, argue that the secondary treatment process offers no significant environmental advantages. The Clean Water Act, they add, unnecessarily applies an inland, freshwater standard to a coastal marine environment that is larger and more resilient than river systems.

“I don’t know if we’ll settle the differences,” Harvey said. “But getting everybody together under the same roof is a step in the right direction.”