BALDWIN HILLS : Resident Protests Planned Sewage Line

Baldwin Hills resident Milton T. Bassett is on a one-man crusade to prevent a proposed 2.5-mile sewage storage line from being built in Exposition Park.

Bassett, who calls the proposed line a “euphemism for ‘cesspool,’ ” charges that it is being built in Exposition Park because the area’s residents are politically disenfranchised, not because several sewer lines intersect there, as city engineers claim.

“They wouldn’t think of putting this in the San Fernando Valley, Brentwood, Hancock Park, any of those places,” said Bassett, 70, a retired engineer.

The storage line is part of the East Central Interceptor Sewer Project, a 12-foot-diameter sewer line from the Los Angeles-Glendale Water Reclamation Plant near Griffith Park to Culver City. The line will collect sewage flow from many smaller lines.

The City Council will decide whether to approve the interceptor project next spring.

The interceptor would replace the deteriorating 70-year-old North Outfall Sewer, which has overflowed several times in recent years, sending raw sewage into the streets of Exposition Park. The new line is needed because the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant cannot take all the sewage flow during rainy periods, said project manager Baron Miya. Construction is scheduled to begin in 1996.

Miya dismisses Bassett’s charges.

“That area is real politically savvy,” said Miya. “USC and some of the museums in the area are real concerned with the impact the construction would have on traffic, but not the storage tunnel.”

Miya said Exposition Park is the right place to put the storage line because of the overflows that have occurred and because construction of the interceptor will pass through the area anyway. The storage line has to be near the interceptor to divert sewage flow.

Bassett said the storage line should be put in an industrial area. He also fears that pent-up gases could lead to an explosion.

Miya said that all sewers contain hydrogen sulfide--and that the storage tank would be no exception--but said an explosion is not possible.

Project representatives have not found any opposition to the project in their three meetings with community residents this month, Miya said.

“Other people are opposed,” Bassett said. “But no one else is willing to go out, write letters and beat the bushes.”