New Break Found in San Diego Sewage Pipe

Divers working a mile offshore have discovered a second major break in the massive outfall pipe that for more than two weeks has sent as much as 180 million gallons a day of partially treated sewage spewing into the ocean, officials said Tuesday.

Underwater teams discovered a “partial joint separation” about 5,800 feet from the rocky cliffs of Point Loma at a depth of 55 feet Sunday and found joint movement in the pipe. The outfall normally discharges sewage about 11,000 feet from shore at a depth of 220 feet.

Deputy City Manager Roger Frauenfelder said the Coast Guard had reported a “boil in the sea” Feb. 2 about a mile offshore, just outside a wide line of fertile kelp beds.

The next day, he said, city workers found a similar boil 3,100 feet from shore and “thought we had a big problem at that location. We didn’t notice what was happening a mile out because, at that point, the entire stream of effluent was being discharged 3,100 feet from the shoreline” at a depth of 35 feet.

Workers are continuing to inspect the rest of the pipe, and city officials conceded the possibility that more sections could be damaged.

Divers also discovered large scrapes on the top of five sections of pipe, Frauenfelder said, leading to speculation that a ship had damaged the outfall structure. He conceded, however, that few large ships travel that close to shore.

City officials continue to maintain that natural, external forces damaged the pipe, each section of which is 25 feet long and weighs 30 tons. Investigators had detected damage in 500 feet of outfall pipe, but the figure was extended to 750 feet Tuesday.

Workers at the Point Loma plant, where most of the county’s sewage is treated and released into the pipe, told The Times last week that the combination of using a diversion gate and a valve that had not been opened recently had created a “water hammer” that may have triggered the rupture.

The state Regional Water Quality Control Board has called for a full investigation of the spill to be conducted by an expert approved by the board.

Meanwhile, workers continued to repair the pipe. Officials said crew members on a 100-by-300-foot barge had completed placing inshore anchor rocks Monday to “stabilize undisturbed ends of pipe.” Crews have placed a total of 2,000 tons of rock and began lifting loose sections of pipe and placing them on the barge.