S.D. Moves to Abandon Sewer Upgrade

Setting the city on a legal collision course with the federal government, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday moved toward scrapping a multibillion-dollar sewage treatment plan, arguing that it makes neither environmental nor economic sense.

Although the city lacks the authority to unilaterally ignore the federally mandated program, that is the practical temporary effect of the council’s 5-2 vote against proceeding with the initial financial steps in the $2.5-billion-plus water treatment and reclamation project. At a meeting next Monday, the council plans to begin examining possible adjustments in the program, which, as originally proposed, would cause sewer and water rates to soar.

Before the council’s stunning Tuesday night vote, which follows years of debate over how San Diego can most efficiently comply with federal clean-water standards, City Manager Jack McGrory had warned that failure to approve the myriad financial and other related actions that he recommended could jeopardize the city’s ability to comply with a federal court order outlining timetables for the program.

However, some council members appeared to welcome the prospect of a showdown with U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, viewing the confrontation as a vehicle for perhaps altering a project that they argue is too costly, inefficient and not only would do little to improve the environment, but perhaps even damage it.

Urging his colleagues to “just say no,” Councilman Bob Filner argued that approval of McGrory’s recommendations would set the city on a course that was “not financially or environmentally or common-sensically sound.”

“We have to stand up and say to whoever wants to hear it--the EPA or the judge--that we are not in contempt by saying no, this proposal is in contempt,” Filner said.

With Mayor Maureen O’Connor and Councilman Ron Roberts absent, Filner was joined by council members John Hartley, George Stevens, Tom Behr and Valerie Stallings in rejecting McGrory’s recommendations. Councilwomen Abbe Wolfsheimer and Judy McCarty opposed Filner’s motion.

The council’s action is virtually certain to outrage top EPA administrators, who have long felt that San Diego officials were dragging their feet on compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. Brewster’s potential reaction is more difficult to gauge, given that he has alternately sided with the EPA and the city at various points throughout the protracted legal proceedings. However, the judge clearly will demand an explanation of Tuesday’s action--specifically, over whether it breaches his court order.

The proposed multibillion-dollar sewage treatment plan, which city officials price at $2.5 billion but which critics argue could cost as much as $10 billion including inflation, financing and other expenses, has been embroiled in controversy virtually since its inception.

The city now discharges about 180 million gallons daily of sewage effluent that has undergone “advanced primary” treatment several miles off Point Loma. The EPA, however, argues that the Point Loma plant must be converted to a so-called secondary treatment facility--which would remove a slightly higher percentage of suspended solids from the waste water--to bring the city into compliance with clean water standards.

But San Diego political and scientific leaders, noting that the proposed upgrading to secondary treatment at the Point Loma plant is one of the costliest portions of the overall program, contend that the city’s discharge of treated sewage into the ocean poses no significant environmental risks.

“Until the federal government’s ready to pay for it . . . we should just say no,” Stevens said. “It’s not fair to burden our ratepayers like this.”

Under McGrory’s recommendations, the council was asked Tuesday to authorize up to $200 million in bonds to finance the initial phases of the sewage treatment upgrading.

To help pay for the program, McGrory offered several options, including one under which the current $19.24 monthly sewer fees for single-family homes would be increased 15% annually over the next five years--raising it, for example, to $22.13 on July 1. Within 11 years, sewer rates would double, and water bills also would increase to finance new pipelines.

If the federal government and the 15 other San Diego County cities agree to contribute toward the cost, San Diego ratepayers would face increases less steep.

Though most council members favor at least portions of the project, ranging from a needed extension of the Point Loma outfall pipeline to proposed water reclamation plants, they acknowledge that they hope to buy enough time to try to persuade Congress to drop the costly secondary requirement when it reviews the Clean Water Act within the next year.

Under a consent decree between the city and the EPA, the city has committed itself to secondary treatment. However, last June, Brewster deferred approval of that plan until January, 1993, to give the city time to aggressively pursue water conservation, reclamation and treatment programs that could substantially reduce the project’s price tag.

From one perspective, Tuesday’s council vote is simply the latest plot twist in an already confusing story.

“We need to go back and re-evaluate this whole program from the start, instead of proceeding with environmental and fiscal premises that are no longer valid,” Filner concluded. “This vote allows us to do that.”