Tijuana Sewage Spill Also Fouling S.D. Coast : Pollution: Twenty miles of coast is now closed because of raw sewage from Mexico and S.D. pipeline break.

The city’s sewage woes worsened Friday when the massive spill from a ruptured underwater pipeline combined with an overflow of raw sewage from Tijuana to close 20 miles of beach, from the international border north to the San Diego River.

The closure by the county health department is the largest ever of local coastline, authorities said.

Health officials said readings of fecal coliform bacteria, capable of inducing diseases ranging from gastrointestinal disorders to dysentery, hepatitis and typhoid, were 400 times the legal limit at the site of the spill and much higher near the border.

While city officials have attempted to cope all week with a break in San Diego’s sewage outfall pipe that has caused up to 180 million gallons of treated sewage a day to foul near-shore waters for 4 1/2 miles, they were caught by surprise when millions of gallons of raw sewage began spilling into the sea from Tijuana.

Flood waters from a two-day heavy storm sent the Mexican sewage into the Tijuana River. Officials estimated that 12 million gallons of raw sewage a day from Tijuana is being dumped into the Pacific, combined with 100 million gallons of contaminated runoff water.

Untreated sewage from the Tijuana River Valley has been flowing north across the border and causing San Diego County beach closures for decades. The problem intensified in recent years as Tijuana’s growth in population outpaced the capacity of that city’s infrastructure.

Since 1987, sewage from Tijuana has caused a permanent closure of a 2 1/2-mile stretch of beach just north of the border. The effluent moves through the Tijuana River and adjacent gullies and arroyos because of a lack of adequate pipelines on the Mexican side.

In another development, Gov. Pete Wilson arrived in San Diego and pledged a $2.5-million grant and a $2-million loan of state funds, combined with $5.5 million from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, to help pay for repairs of the broken pipe.

But in granting the money, the EPA attached four recommended “actions,” including a suggestion that the city change its policy and begin disinfecting its treated sewage with chlorine.

San Diego officials say it will take an estimated $10 million to repair at least 21 sections of the 9-foot-diameter outfall pipe that is sending partially treated sewage gushing into the ocean 3,150 feet offshore, at a depth of 35 feet.

The spill was detected by the U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday night near the rocky cliffs of the Point Loma peninsula. Officials speculate that settlement of the ocean floor, combined with wave action during recent low tides, caused 500 feet of the pipe to tear apart, spilling its entire flow of effluent.

Each section of the reinforced concrete pipe is 25 feet long and weighs 30 tons. The unbroken pipe carried treated sewage--from which 80% of the solids have been removed--2.2 miles out to sea, at a depth of 220 feet. The system serves 1.7 million residents of the city and 15 communities.

Federal and state officials have called the spill one of the worst in the nation, likening it to a local version of the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska.

Gary Stephany, director of environmental health services for San Diego County, said readings of fecal coliform bacteria had zoomed to more than 400 times the legal limit from the tip of Point Loma to beaches 2 miles north, but, as of late Friday, were many times higher near the border.

Expected weekend storms may push the sewage farther north, he said.

Raw sewage, Stephany said, has been detected on the pristine beaches of Coronado, and the contamination from Mexico was clearly evident in the city of Imperial Beach near the border. He said the level of fecal coliform bacteria was “at the limit” 4 1/2 miles north of the Point Loma spill.

Although San Diego and Tijuana have made progress in curtailing their sewage problems, overflow from heavy rains combined with northward ocean currents can still affect beaches as far north as Coronado. It is rare for sewage from Tijuana to affect beaches at the Silver Strand and in Coronado, although it is more common in Imperial Beach.

The fundamental solution lies in a $200-million sewage treatment plant planned for the border area. The plant is designed to handle up to 25 million gallons of effluent a day from both sides of the border. President Bush’s budget, unveiled this week, earmarks $52 million for the project, spurring hopes that the plant can be completed by early 1995.

County health official Dan Avera said Friday that, in late August, the San Diego system began processing the 12 million gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana as part of a binational agreement.

“The system on the Mexican side of the border is designed to pick up sewage from the Tijuana River and divert it into our metro system, but with floods the volume is such that we’re just not able to handle it,” Avera said.

Stephany said signs were posted along 20 miles of the county’s beaches, but added that enforcement measures are difficult, even though “the water is clearly dangerous--it’s contaminated.”

“I can’t do anything about people who aren’t smart enough to understand that they will get sick,” Stephany said. “If surfers say, ‘Waves are more important to me than getting sick,’ well, there’s nothing I can do about that.

“We can’t put policemen out there to patrol the beaches, but the danger is there. It’s like saying, ‘Don’t eat mushrooms from a certain field because, if you do, you’re going to die.’ Some people go ahead and eat the mushrooms anyway.”

Alan Langworthy, deputy water utilities director for the city of San Diego, said Friday that the Tijuana overflow had made the crisis much worse, but he hoped that a giant barge could begin work early today on arresting the spill off Point Loma.

A Boise, Idaho, company joined forces with a Long Beach firm to send a 20-person crew and a barge, capable of lifting 600 tons at a time, into the area of the spill Friday night. San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor was expected to tour the site of the spill today.

Gov. Wilson said here Friday that state and federal funds should pay for all repairs, but he assailed critics who suggested that, during his term as mayor in the 1970s, he could have prevented such an occurrence by spearheading a secondary-treatment facility.

San Diego’s method of sewage treatment is advanced primary, which removes 75% to 80% of the solids. Secondary treatment removes 85% to 90% of the solids.

Wilson said he was advised “long ago” that “billions of dollars would be wasted” on such a facility, and he defended the city’s method of treatment.

In reference to a sharp attack Thursday from Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), Wilson said, “I will be grateful on the day that the information coming out of Mr. Hayden’s office has been treated so that it is of the same quality as what’s coming out of the (San Diego) outfall.”

In addition to the recommendation that the city begin using chlorine to disinfect its treated sewage, the EPA also called on San Diego to:

* Monitor the water quality near Point Loma.

* Develop a pipe repair plan.

* Quarantine the kelp bed area.

While the city is already complying with the three recommendations, it is reluctant to embark on the fourth: using chlorine.

City Manager Jack McGrory said San Diego had long resisted chlorine disinfectant because of its “potential for lasting harm” to marine life.

“These are not conditions,” he said. “We got the money (Friday). But as suggestions, we want to think long and hard about disinfecting the effluent before we do it. We don’t feel comfortable with it because of its impact on the ocean environment.”

State regulators share McGrory’s concern.

“It could bleach the whole near-shore environment,” said John Grant, a marine biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game, who monitors oil spill prevention and response. “In other words, it dies. . . . It’s sort of like in Vietnam, where they had to destroy a village in order to save it.”

Elsewhere in San Diego, the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau issued a statement Friday saying that local “media reports are overplaying this emergency, and some national news reports have already exaggerated the situation.”

ConVis sent letters to more than 3,300 travel agents and meeting planners advising them that it was “business as usual” in San Diego despite the spill, according to Reint Reinders, the bureau’s president.

ConVis’ letter was designed to counter “misconceptions” created by news reports about the massive spill, according to Reinders’ letter. He assured travel industry leaders that “visitors to San Diego will find their vacations unaffected by the event.”

Times staff writers Sebastian Rotella, Greg Johnson and Julie Tamaki contributed to this article.

TIJUANA SEWAGE: Border sewage problem had been getting better. B1

CONSERVATION: Officials’ pleas for conservation to lessen the flow into the Point Loma treatment plant seem to be working. B8