S.D. to Seek Waiver to Delay Sewage Plant Upgrade

The San Diego City Council has reversed ground and decided to try to regain an exemption from federal clean-water standards at the city’s Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant.

With a council majority arguing that the admittedly long-shot move could save hundreds of millions of dollars, the council voted 5-3 in closed session Tuesday to ask a federal judge overseeing a planned $2.8-billion sewage project to allow the city to reactivate a clean-water waiver--abandoned 3 1/2 years ago--rather than upgrade the Point Loma plant.

While the majority characterized the action as simply an effort to preserve the city’s options, Mayor Maureen O’Connor warned that by perhaps infuriating U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials it could force San Diego to complete the costly project eight years earlier than planned.

“If I were the EPA, I’d say, ‘Fine, see you in court,’ ” O’Connor said Wednesday.

From 1981 through 1986, San Diego obtained temporary waivers from the Clean Water Act’s requirement to provide secondary treatment to remove about 90% of suspended solids from sewage. The city’s advanced primary sewage treatment process now removes about 80% of the solids from waste water before it is discharged into the ocean off Point Loma.

After the EPA indicated that the city’s request for a waiver extension would not be granted, San Diego withdrew its application--the one it now hopes to revive--in February, 1987. Viewing secondary treatment as inevitable, some top city officials expressed hope at the time that, by abandoning the waiver request, the city would be better positioned to attract federal funds to help pay for the project.

The five council members who supported the renewed waiver application Tuesday, however, insisted that they were simply pursuing an alternative that U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster put before them when he questioned a month ago whether the federally mandated secondary sewage treatment plan is necessary in San Diego.

At a hearing in late August, Brewster, to the surprise of attorneys on both sides of the case, explained that some marine scientists’ doubts about the environmental impact of secondary treatment have caused him to have second thoughts about the plan, estimated to cost from $2.6 billion to $2.8 billion by the year 2003. At Brewster’s request, the attorneys are scheduled to address the judge’s authority to review whether the city must proceed with the project at a hearing next month.

“Now that the judge has opened that door, the responsible thing is to see whether we can take advantage of that,” Councilman Ron Roberts said.

O’Connor, though, argued that the council could be “doing the city real harm” by possibly antagonizing federal officials and speeding the project’s timetable. While the city’s existing agreement with the EPA would give it 13 years to comply with the federal standards, the waiver would expire in five years, the mayor said.

While city officials recognize the futility of trying to convince the EPA to alter its position, they hold out greater hope of persuading Brewster to resurrect the waiver.

The proposed upgrading of the Point Loma plant is a major and costly component of the overall sewage treatment program, which also includes plans for construction of a new South Bay facility and six water reclamation plants.

By its action Tuesday, the council decided to proceed with the overall program while trying to regain the exemption for the Point Loma plant.

Most of the cost for the project would be financed through dramatically higher sewage bills--a politically unpalatable prospect for the council. Last summer, the city increased sewage rates to help pay the anticipated costs.

Those misgivings have been broadened by contentions from some scientists, including several at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, that the city’s current sewage treatment process does not damage the ocean environment--and might enhance it. Other scientists argue that secondary treatment would improve water quality.

That division of scientific opinion is at the heart of Brewster’s legal ponderings over his ability to perhaps turn back the clock on the decision that the council itself made 3 1/2 years ago.

O’Connor, though, argues that if the water regulations are amended, they are likely to become stricter, not more lenient.

Roberts and others, however, say that is a risk they are willing to take, given that the EPA has shown little willingness to compromise to date.

“The EPA hasn’t given a very sympathetic ear to San Diego so far, and I don’t think it ever will,” Roberts said. “I’m not very worried about losing any favors from the EPA. That’s no risk at all. You can’t lose what you don’t have.”