Septic Tank Cleaning Firms Protest L.A. Plans to Change Rules, Fees

Septic tank cleaning firms protested Wednesday against proposed new Los Angeles city rules and fees, saying the changes would force them to double what they charge their customers, most of whom live in the San Fernando Valley.

The proposals would seriously harm the firms’ productivity, forcing them “to double or triple our bills,” said Paul Walker of Walker & Sons, a Tujunga-based septic tank cleaning firm.

But Los Angeles sanitation officials defended the proposed changes, including a new fee that must be approved by the City Council.

The city has estimated that septic tanks are used by about 30,000 households, mostly in remote, older and hilly areas where sewer construction is difficult, such as Sunland-Tujunga and Sylmar. Septic tanks are also used in Mount Washington and Eagle Rock on the Eastside and in Brentwood on the Westside, according to city officials and waste haulers.

Septic tanks usually are cleaned once or twice a year, at a charge of $50 to $150 per household, the firms say.

To more easily monitor illegal dumping of toxics, the city would require septic tank cleaning firms to unload the effluent at one location, the city’s Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.

Now the firms dump the effluent--hauled in trucks with capacities of 1,500 to 2,000 gallons--into the city sewer system at 10 sites scattered throughout Los Angeles. Special manholes leading to the sewers are designated for this purpose.

Additionally, the cleaning firms would be required to pay 2.4 cents per gallon of effluent dumped.

The new costs will be passed on to customers, predicted Carol Showalter of Sun Valley-based Showalter Sanitation Co. “It’s not so much the fees as the longer haul times,” Showalter said. “It may very easily double our costs.”

But Robert Alpern, deputy chief of the city’s Bureau of Sanitation, said the fees will finally pay the city’s cost of treating septic tank sewage.

“The new fee is equitable,” Alpern said, because residents on the regular sewer system already pay a similar charge based on the volume of effluent they generate.

In 1990, the city was sued by a poverty law firm representing half a dozen Latino residents in Pacoima who alleged that they had been improperly charged sewer fees by the city for years when, in effect, they received no sewer services because they were on septic tanks.

The city subsequently agreed to refund the fees not only to the plaintiffs but to all other septic tank users in the city who had paid them. To date, about $500,000 has been refunded to 750 households.

Now, however, the city is proposing that these residents pay a sewer fee, said Brad Smith, a deputy chief of the Bureau of Engineering.