San Diego Sewage

* I am writing to correct errors in “Gingrich Stirring Troubled Waters” (April 2), concerning San Diego’s waste-water treatment and disposal via the ocean outfall.

Scott Jenkins is quoted as saying that the outfall’s plume often rises and is pushed ashore, insinuating that this is an unhealthy situation. The facts are that the plume stays submerged in deep ocean waters and its influence is never observed even within the kelp beds, let alone the beaches that are 4.5 miles from the discharge point.

References in the article to “secret” reports that revealed leaks in the outfall pipe prior to its unfortunate failure in 1992 are absolutely without foundation. Had the reporter reviewed the evidence in the legal proceedings he referred to in the article, he would have learned that the jury did not believe Jenkins’ testimony because the facts proved to be quite different.

JACK McGRORY

City Manager, San Diego