Panel Backs Regional Sewage Agency for S.D.

An Assembly committee Wednesday approved a plan to create a San Diego regional waste-water treatment agency with the power to issue nearly $4 billion in bonds to upgrade and expand the area’s aging sewer system.

Under a bill by Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego), the proposed San Diego Area Wastewater Management District would be directed by a 20-member appointed board drawn from San Diego and its suburbs, have the power to raise sewage rates and be responsible for completing an ambitious $4.2-billion construction program to bring waste-water treatment up to federal standards.

The construction program was inspired by the requirements of a consent decree stemming from the federal government’s successful lawsuit against the city of San Diego for violations of the 1972 Clean Water Act. A federal judge also fined the city $2.5 million for non-compliance with the environmental law and past sewage spills.

“The city of San Diego could have done it by itself,” Killea said about the improvement plan, “but, as long as they are making it a regional approach, they need the legislation to create the authority.”

City officials say the super-agency is needed to take over the sewage system upgrading and will guarantee that responsibility--and costs--for an expanded grid of pipes, pump stations, reclamation facilities and treatment ponds that are spread throughout local jurisdictions.

About 190 million gallons of sewage from 1.7 million residents of San Diego and its suburbs are now treated each day by the Metropolitan Sewage System, which went into operation in 1963 with the completion of the Point Loma sewage treatment plant and its ocean outfall. The city runs the system and charges 15 nearby sewer districts and cities to plug in.

Under the Killea plan, the city would relinquish that control in mid-1992 to the proposed super agency, to be run by 20 board members appointed from the area to four-year terms.

San Diego would have six slots on the board, with two each for the county and Chula Vista. Local sewer districts, the county water authority and the cities of La Mesa, Del Mar, Imperial Beach, National City, Coronado and Poway would each have one.

Killea’s bill would allow the board, on a two-thirds vote, to issue up to $3.95 billion in revenue bonds for a sewage system expansion designed to take care of an estimated 340 million gallons of effluent a day.

Plans call for upgrading Point Loma from an advanced primary treatment plant, where about 75% of the solids are extracted, to a secondary plant, where up to 90% are extracted.

According to a spokeswoman for the city’s Clean Water Program, other points of the 12-year, federally mandated sewage improvement plan include:

* A second treatment plant to be built in the South Bay, next to the border and at the end of Dairy Mart Road.

* Construction of seven water reclamation facilities to reuse 70,000 acre-feet of treated waste water on open spaces, golf courses, cemeteries and playing fields.

* Adding to one and building two new waste water outfall pipes, which will extend from 7,000 to 17,000 feet into the ocean.

* More or improved sludge disposal sites.

The tentative financing plan calls for about 80% of the project to be paid for by the bonds, which in turn would be repaid by fees, reclaimed water sales and property assessment. The other 20% would come directly from charges levied on individual sewage bills.

Fueled by the increased costs, residents could see the average sewage bill jump from $18 to $30 a month by the end of the century, the spokeswoman said.

The Assembly Local Government Committee on Wednesday passed Killea’s bill, which is considered noncontroversial district legislation and has already passed the Senate.