The Spill That Chilled San Diego : Sewer pipe cracks, raising worrisome questions about treatment system

It’s hard to escape the irony of a 180-million-gallon-a-day spill of partially treated sewage occurring off San Diego while the city is trying to convince a federal judge that it’s cleaning up its sewage act. It’s a position that Los Angeles is all too familiar with.

San Diego’s metropolitan sewage system had a terrible record of raw spills in the 1980s and has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As it replaced old pipes, the number of spills dropped. But that didn’t end the city’s sewer troubles. Last year, a 5.1-million-gallon spill of raw sewage went unattended for two days even though it had been reported. The city admitted it had a communication problem.

All the while, the city has expended enormous energy trying to get exempted from a federal Clean Water Act requirement to increase its level of sewage treatment from advanced primary, which removes 75% to 80% of solids, to secondary treatment, which removes about 90%.

San Diego is one of the last major cities to continue that fight. Los Angeles, another holdout for many years, signed a consent decree in 1987 and is now working on the conversion.

Even if the sewage from the city and surrounding communities were being treated to the higher level of cleanliness, it’s unclear whether the difference would have been enough to keep the coastline open in the current breakdown. It’s a question that needs answering.

Another question that should be revisited is whether the sewage should be chlorinated to kill bacteria before it is dumped into the ocean. San Diego has resisted this expensive option, citing the dangers of transporting the chlorine and the risks to marine life.

Instead, it wants to extend the 2.2-mile outfall pipe. That would be less expensive and might protect kelp forests, but it would not prevent contamination from a spill such as this. A backup pipe--such as Orange County has off Huntington Beach--might.

It will take time to sort out the causes of this spill and assess damage. But the damage it could do to the coast--both real and in image--makes it clear that more safeguards are needed.