Judge Lets S.D. Off Hook for Sewage Work : Environment: City granted reprieve from upgrades that would add additional $1.2 billion to sewer fees.

Over objections from attorneys for the federal government and an environmental group, a federal judge reaffirmed Friday that he will allow the city of San Diego to delay certain, federally mandated sewage-system improvements that would have doubled sewer rates.

Attorneys representing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Sierra Club argued that the judge’s interim order, handed down last month, would endanger the ocean environment.

But Judge Rudi M. Brewster said he was convinced that no significant threat is being posed by the city’s current method of treating sewage and discharging the treated water through a 2-mile-long pipe off the coast of Point Loma. And, Brewster said, no further damage would result from delaying certain mandated projects in the “consent decree,” the key component in the longstanding lawsuit.

“There has been no irreparable injury to the environment, the federal government or anyone else,” Brewster said.

The lawsuit is intended to force the city to comply with the Clean Water Act, which is enforced by state and federal agencies. The Sierra Club is also a party to the suit, in which the city is the lone defendant.

City officials already have approved $1.3 billion in improvements to satisfy significant portions of the lawsuit. As a result of Brewster’s ruling, the city has been granted a reprieve, at least temporarily, from having to construct other highly contested improvements that would cost San Diego ratepayers an additional $1.2 billion over the next 10 years.

Brewster’s order gives the city a 19-month delay in implementing the additional improvements. There is no guarantee, however, that those improvements, including construction of several treatment plants, will not be required eventually. Brewster’s order calls for all parties to return to his courtroom in February, 1994, to determine what the city will have to do next to comply with the consent decree.

The delay allows the city to keep in place a 6% annual increase in sewer rates through 1997 that it will need to finance bonds to pay for the improvements. Had the full package of improvements been ordered, the city would have had to increase rates 15% each year for the next 10 years.

Among other projects, Brewster’s ruling gives the go-ahead to extending the Point Loma outfall pipe from its current 2.2 miles, at a depth of 220 feet, to 4.5 miles at a depth of 330 feet, at a cost of $54 million. The city also plans to construct a backup pipe, running parallel to the existing outfall, which ruptured earlier this year, fouling the coast from the Mexican border to Ocean Beach.

The order also requires the city’s E. W. Blom Wastewater Treatment Plant on Point Loma, which serves 1.7 million San Diego County residents, to improve its sewage treatment to a “modified secondary” method, slightly below the level mandated by the consent decree and the Clean Water Act. The current “advanced primary” method removes 75% to 80% of suspended solids in the effluent. Secondary treatment removes 90% or more of the solids.

At Friday’s hearing, Sierra Club attorney Robert Simmons argued that the city should be held in contempt of court because the City Council adopted the revised plan before presenting it to the judge for his approval.

Brewster disagreed, saying, “The city has been in good faith throughout this litigation in attempting to solve the problems of sewage in this city at a price that the citizens can reasonably be expected to pay.”

At another point in the hearing, Simmons attempted to elicit testimony from David Schlesinger, director of the city’s Clean Water Program, on the findings of a report by Failure Analysis Associates, who are investigating the rupture. Simmons was cut short by Brewster, however, after an objection from Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield.

The city has been withholding preliminary findings from the report on the grounds that they could place the city in a legally compromising position in the face of pending legal claims.

A massive air bubble lodged in the pipe has been cited in previous hearings as a likely cause of the rupture.