Proposed Septic Tank Cleaning Rules Protested

Septic tank cleaning firms protested last week against proposed Los Angeles city rules and fees, saying the changes would force them to double what they charge their customers.

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 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 remoter, older and hilly areas where sewer construction is difficult, such as Sunland-Tujunga and Sylmar. Septic tanks are also used in Brentwood on the Westside and on Mt. Washington and Eagle Rock on the Eastside, according to city officials and waste haulers.

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

Under the proposed changes, the city would require the cleaning firms to unload the effluent they pump from residences at one central 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, Carol Showalter of Sun Valley-based Showalter Sanitation Co. predicted. “It’s not so much the fees as the longer haul times,” he 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 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 got no sewer services because they were on septic tanks.

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

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