EPA Rules Against County on Bay Sewage : Environment: Sanitation Districts lose decade-long bid for exemption from strict controls on waste water dumped off Palos Verdes Peninsula. Environmentalists hail decision.

In a long-awaited ruling applauded by environmentalists, federal officials Friday ruled that additional treatment is required for sewage dumped into Santa Monica Bay by a huge county government treatment plant.

The Environmental Protection Agency rejected a decade-long bid by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts for a waiver from strict federal controls on waste water the agency pumps into waters off the Palos Verdes Peninsula at a rate of 380 million gallons a day.

“The county did not demonstrate that its waste water discharge would allow the natural fish and shellfish populations to thrive on the Palos Verdes Shelf,” EPA Regional Administrator Daniel W. McGovern said in a statement issued from his San Francisco office. “EPA found that many native species that are sensitive to pollution could not tolerate the county’s discharge.”

The EPA ruling addresses one of the most hotly debated environmental questions facing Santa Monica Bay. For years, the sanitation districts had sought a waiver from 1970s-era treatment standards affecting ocean-bound sewage discharged from the agency’s Carson plant.

Environmental groups and lawmakers allied with them have lobbied hard against the exemption. Late Friday, opponents of the waiver applauded the ruling but expressed concern that the sanitation districts might fight it administratively or in court.

“This decision is a milestone for our ocean, and we will stop tons of toxic pollution from entering the coastal waters every year as a result of it,” said U.S. Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica). “It is my sincere hope that the sanitation districts will do the coastline a favor and comply with the law, not find new tactics to circumvent it.”

Said Mark Gold, a biologist with the Santa Monica environmental group Heal The Bay: “It’s about damn time. This is a nice Christmas present for Santa Monica Bay.”

The sanitation districts could challenge the EPA ruling by requesting a federal hearing and, if that fails, file an appeal with EPA Administrator William Reilly. If the administrative route proves fruitless, the districts could take the matter to court.

There was no immediate indication Friday about the intentions of the sanitation agency, which serves unincorporated areas and more than 70 cities stretching from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Pomona.

“That issue remains to be resolved,” James Stall, assistant chief engineer for the sanitation districts, said late Friday afternoon.

At stake in the EPA ruling was whether the federal government would require the sanitation districts to provide full secondary treatment for its ocean-bound sewage, a system that employs biological processes to remove a minimum of 85% of the solids in waste water.

Already, more than half of the Carson plant’s effluent receives secondary treatment. The rest receives primary treatment, a less costly and less effective method of removing solids.

In fighting for a waiver, the sanitation districts said intensifying treatment would unnecessarily cost ratepayers $350 million and indirectly cause environmental damage.

The sanitation agency said solids from its ocean outfalls do not hurt marine life and help cap a layer of bay sediment contaminated years ago by hundreds of tons of chemicals including the pesticide DDT.

The waiver, it argued, is justified if only to prevent ocean currents from exposing the DDT, which was dumped in the sewer system and discharged through the outfalls in the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Announcing Friday’s decision, which upholds a tentative ruling by the agency in January, McGovern rejected that argument. “EPA has determined that the discharge is not needed to ensure that the DDT remains buried,” he said.

The sanitation districts said in a statement Friday that it had offered to begin designing full secondary treatment facilities. But it made the offer on the condition the EPA postpone a decision on the waiver request until an independent study of the DDT problem could be conducted. The offer, apparently, was rejected by federal officials.

If the county sanitation districts obey the EPA ruling it would mean intensified treatment for Santa Monica Bay’s second major source of sewage. The other, the city of Los Angeles, is upgrading its giant Hyperion sewage plant near El Segundo to provide full secondary treatment under a 1986 accord with the EPA. Currently, the two plants pump roughly equal amounts of waste water into the bay, officials say.

A key EPA official interviewed Friday said it was too early to say whether a final resolution of the sewage dispute is at hand.

“It all depends on what the sanitation districts do next,” said Janet Hashimoto, chief of the oceans and estuaries section of the EPA’s regional office.