Common Sense 10 Years in the Making : San Diegans offer region a useful lesson in efficient water-resource protection

For a lesson on how environmental efforts can reach the outer limits of common sense, Californians need look no further than San Diego. Five years ago, the city was hailed for its willingness to spend huge sums to upgrade the treatment that sewage received before being discharged into the ocean. Now, even onetime proponents admit they were too quick to embrace the largest public works project in city history.

The early promises were plentiful. The ocean would be saved; millions of gallons of waste water would be reclaimed; San Diego would finally be in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act and might avoid being sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state water quality officials.

But when the city didn’t act fast enough for the EPA, the agency sued anyway. And a parade of scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography testified that the upgrade would not benefit the ocean. Meanwhile, the official price tag has ballooned from under $500 million to $2.5 billion. And it’s now estimated that half of the reclaimed water would be dumped at sea for lack of users.

Now the City Council is threatening to back out of a proposed legal settlement, even if it means some council members might be jailed for contempt of court. Even the Sierra Club favors the upgrade only if a cheaper chemical treatment doesn’t work. And state water officials hint that they may drop out of the lawsuit.

Only the federal EPA won’t reconsider its position, insisting that San Diego treat its ocean-bound sewage to the same level as cities that dump into confined bays or rivers that provide drinking water.

The Times is among those having second thoughts. The upgrade may be the way to go--but it must be scientifically justified. The Clean Water Act was landmark legislation that deserves support. But its site-by-site application must be based on scientific fact, not bureaucratic stubbornness.

A $1.1-billion alternative plan pending before the City Council--and said to be favored by the state--includes doubling the length of the current discharge pipe and building a backup pipe. That would ensure against a repeat of last winter’s disaster when the sole pipe in operation ruptured, fouling the ocean and beaches for two months. It also includes water reclamation and upgrading the sewage infrastructure, notorious for backups. None of these problems would be solved by switching to secondary treatment.

On Friday U.S. District Judge Rudy Brewster holds his first hearing on the lawsuit since the council’s about-face. We hope he accepts the San Diego City Council’s action for what it is: a legitimate attempt to finally solve this decade-old controversy.