EPA Demands Sewer Upgrade by End of ’99 : Sewage: The federal agency’s timetable is nearly eight years ahead of what the city of San Diego says is possible.

The EPA is demanding that San Diego complete a $2.8-billion upgrading of its sewage-treatment system by December, 1999, nearly eight years earlier than the city claims is technically possible, according to documents filed Monday in connection with the agency’s federal lawsuit against the city.

According to the documents, which publicly disclose for the first time the positions of the two sides in the legal battle, city experts predict that they can overhaul the system by August, 2007, when conversion of the city’s Point Loma treatment plant to so-called “secondary” standards would be completed.

Settlement negotiations in the case are occurring from time to time, but the Environmental Protection Agency, represented by the U.S. Department of Justice, and the city have spent recent weeks feverishly preparing for trial by taking depositions from witnesses and preparing the arguments outlined in the memoranda filed Monday. The state of California also is a plaintiff in the action against the city because the federal Clean Water Act also requires that the city comply with state sewage-treatment regulations.

Monday, U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster delayed the trial date from Dec. 5 to Jan. 9, which provides more time for a negotiated settlement. But city officials did not have encouraging words.

“We looked at 2007, and there’s not a lot of give in that number,” said Councilman Ron Roberts, a main supporter of the city’s plan to build a treatment system that also would reclaim as much as 133 million gallons of water daily for use in irrigation.

“I am convinced in my own mind that, short of the federal government coming in with a program that would mirror the effort to put a man on the moon, you physically could not do it” by 1999, Roberts said.

He also said that sewage-system users could not afford the sizable fee increases necessary to complete the upgrading by 1999.

But Gerald George, senior counsel for the Justice Department, said the city’s timetable includes social and political factors that should not be included in Brewster’s determination of how quickly the city can assemble a new treatment system.

“They’re not saying they couldn’t. They’re saying they don’t want to,” George said Monday.

If the two sides cannot settle before Jan. 9, Brewster will decide the construction timetable in the first, or “remedy,” phase of the trial. At a subsequent trial, he would determine whether the city should be penalized for violations dating back to 1983, and how large those fines might be.

The EPA and the state sued the city last year for missing a July, 1988, deadline for compliance with the Clean Water Act and spilling untreated sewage into local waterways. The federal law required that all cities upgrade their sewage treatment systems to secondary standards, under which 85% to 90% of solids are removed from effluent before it is dumped in the ocean. The city’s current “advanced primary” treatment system removes 75% to 80% of the solids.

The lawsuit also seeks potentially millions of dollars in fines for past sewage spills.

City planners and consulting engineers have drawn up plans for a $2.6- to $2.8-billion renovation of the sewage treatment system that would be the largest public-works project ever undertaken by the city. In addition to upgrading the Point Loma plant, the system would add a secondary-treatment plant in the South Bay, a South Bay ocean outfall that may be several miles long and six water reclamation plants around the county.

Although some information on the city’s proposed construction timetable has appeared in news reports, it generally was secret until outlined in the memo submitted Monday by city attorneys.

In its list of milestones, the city proposes to continue planning and financing the system from now until 1997. Design would begin near the end of 1991 and continue until mid-1999. The first phase of construction would begin in mid-1994 and last until early 2002. Final construction on the Point Loma plant would start in late 2001 and continue until August, 2007.

According to the city’s documents, it would take two to three years just to reorganize the Metropolitan Sewerage System, which now includes 1.7 million people in 16 cities and sewage districts, to better facilitate the sale of bonds that will finance construction of the sewer project.

The city also argues that, “in all, well over 20 major projects will be required in the initial phases of this program, with several of the projects individually being more costly and complex than the recently completed San Diego Convention Center. It is critical that the milestones are selected in recognition of the enormous size and complexity of the project.”

Obtaining approvals from other jurisdictions within the sewage system will also be time-consuming, according to the city’s memorandum.

Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield said Monday that, although EPA officials orally support the city’s water-reclamation efforts, the 1999 deadline does not allow time for construction of the additional facilities necessary to exceed secondary standards and make sewage reusable on golf courses, crops and highway medians.

“They say they like reclamation . . . and their schedule is based on a secondary program. We don’t think it’s appropriate,” Bromfield said.

But the EPA, which is demanding several injunctions against the city, claims that, “to comply with the intent of Congress, the city must be ordered to comply with the secondary-treatment requirements of the Clean Water Act through construction of secondary-treatment facilities in accordance with the tightest, technically justified construction schedule.”

Besides the December, 1999, deadline, the federal agency is demanding an injunction that would require the city to maintain a capital-improvement program that would prevent further sewage spills from antiquated pipelines, and another injunction that would require enforcement of penalties against companies and others who dump waste into the sewer system without “pre-treatment” to take out heavy metals and other waste that could harm the ocean environment.

The EPA also wants Brewster to ensure that the city maintains adequate budget and staff to comply with the Clean Water Act, limit sewage flows so that the system does not overflow its existing capacity of 190 million gallons daily, and regularly monitor pump stations.