Last Obstacle to New Sewage Plant Plan Falls

A federal court judge Wednesday dismissed the Sierra Club’s objections to a legal settlement governing construction of San Diego’s proposed new sewage treatment system, removing virtually the last obstacle to judicial approval of plans for the $2.8-billion project.

Unless objections raised during an upcoming public comment period are more persuasive than the arguments of Sierra Club lawyers, or the Sierra Club can persuade him to change his mind, U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster will approve the settlement and clear the way for construction of the largest public works project in city history.

“The city is very pleased with the judge’s ruling, because it means that, without the delays of renegotiation, the city can actively and aggressively comply with the provisions of the Clean Water Act,” said Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield, who represented the city in its two-week trial against the Sierra Club.

“We’re very happy the judge agreed with us,” said Doug Byrns, an aide to Mayor Maureen O’Connor. “We can move ahead with our program.”

A Sierra Club attorney expressed disappointment at the ruling, and Councilman Bruce Henderson, the city’s chief critic of the mammoth sewage treatment project vowed that “this issue is not dead, not by a long way.”

Henderson said he remains “very optimistic” about his chances of amending the federal Clean Water Act to remove the requirement for the treatment system and predicted that the public will demand change when the city releases data on sewer rate increases needed to finance the project.

The settlement between the city and three state and federal agencies mandates construction of a $2.6-billion to $2.8-billion “secondary” sewage treatment system by Dec. 31, 2003, to comply with the federal Clean Water Act. When financing costs are factored in, the system probably will cost more than $6 billion over the next 30 years, Brewster wrote.

Secondary sewage removes about 10% more solids from effluent than the city’s current “advanced primary” treatment method.

City planners also intend to build six water-reclamation facilities that would cleanse as much as 120 million gallons of water daily for reuse in irrigation by 2010.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Justice Department and the Regional Water Quality Control Board sued the city in July 1988 for failure to comply with the law and for about 1,800 separate sewage spills into local waterways since 1983.

The Sierra Club and environmental activist Emily Durbin were granted intervenor status in the case and used that position to oppose the out-of-court settlement reached in January.

In hearings that began last month, the intervenors asked Brewster to block the deal, contending that the incorporation of strict water conservation measures, such as installation of low-volume toilets, faucet aerators and low-flow shower heads, would result in a far smaller sewage system and a significantly reduced price tag.

But Wednesday, Brewster sided with city attorneys, who had asked him not to tie the City Council’s hands by ordering water conservation in the consent decree.

“Any final water conservation program must be a multifaceted proposal, which deserves careful analysis and an opportunity for input from all impacted community interests,” Brewster wrote. “The process is political and legislative in nature and is best developed by elected representatives.”

In addition, Brewster found that the system is designed with water conservation in mind. “The consent decree is ‘sized’ to adapt to any level of success of any water conservation programs adopted by the users of the system,” he wrote.

Sierra Club attorney William Benjamin said Wednesday that Brewster did not address one of the organization’s main contentions, that the Clean Water Act requires capping effluent levels during the 13 years it will take the city to build the treatment system to prevent further pollution of the ocean by insufficiently treated sewage.

The city’s Point Loma treatment plan now handles 191 million gallons of sewage daily, and the amount is increasing at an annual rate of about 3.5 million gallons a day.

Benjamin said that the Sierra Club may ask Brewster to reconsider and address that argument. The organization cannot appeal to a higher court

“We’re disappointed,” Benjamin said. “The court had an opportunity to (mandate water conservation) and did not take that opportunity. And who knows how long it will be until the city does something constructive?”

Approval of the settlement does not mean the end of more than a decade of wrangling over the sewage treatment system.

Still ahead is the lawsuit’s second phase: more negotiations and a possible trial over potentially millions of dollars in fines that the federal government wants to impose on the city for past sewage spills.

In that phase, the city will once again become the adversary of the three state and federal agencies, and will probably be allied with the Sierra Club. Bromfield said the EPA has demanded substantial cash penalties.