Water District Under Investigation

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating whether the Capistrano Beach Water District broke environmental laws by improperly disposing of sewage.

The probe has been underway for more than a month and a search warrant was served by district attorney’s investigators at the water district administration offices near Doheny State Beach last week, said Valerie Griswold, a senior deputy district attorney in the department’s environmental protection unit.

Griswold would not give details about the suspected violations, saying it could be another month before a decision is made to file charges against the district or district officials.

“They are under investigation for possible environmental violations related to sewage,” Griswold said. “I can’t get more specific than that at this time.”

After reviewing reports, she will determine “if we have criminal activity or should take some type of civil action against the potential subjects.”

Sources in the water industry, speaking on condition of not being named, said the district is being investigated for allegedly letting sewage collected in trucks that clean underground pipelines and storm drains seep into the ground outside the district’s sewage treatment plant.

The trucks circulate throughout the district and scour the pipelines with a high-pressure hose and vacuum up the discharge. State law requires districts to treat the collected liquid waste by pumping it through the regular sewage processing system and truck the leftover solid material to specialized waste treatment plants.

District General Manager Dennis MacLain acknowledged Thursday that some sewage had been mishandled at the 30-acre plant next to San Juan Creek in Capistrano Beach.

“This was an unauthorized discharge,” said MacLain. “It was very small. We are convinced there is no direct health threat . . . but we are concerned it wasn’t in compliance with the law.”

The Capistrano Beach Water District is a new special district, created in January 1995 with the merger of the 66-year-old Capistrano Beach Sanitary District and the Capistrano Beach County Water District. It is governed by a 10-member board made up of the directors of the two former districts.

The district serves about 5,200 customers in the Capistrano Beach area of Dana Point, throughout Dana Point Harbor and a small part of San Clemente. Its annual operating budget is about $6.5 million.

Monica Mazur, an environmental health specialist with the county Health Care Agency, said her department could not comment and referred all questions to Griswold.

“We are aware of [the investigation], but that’s all I can say,” Mazur said.

One of the district’s elected directors, Jim Hayton of Dana Point, said there has been no dumping of raw sewage by district employees. He suggested that someone in the community could be trying to embarrass the district amid ongoing efforts to place local water districts under the auspices of the city.

“This smells like a political maneuver to me,” Hayton said. “Because we are looking at a lot of possible city and regional consolidations, there could be an effort made to make the district look irresponsible when, in fact, the district is extremely well run and the staff members are very, very concerned about safety and full compliance with any regulations.”

Director Matt Ehrhart said district officials don’t know who reported the matter to authorities or what the consequences could be.

“We just don’t know how serious it is,” Ehrhart said.

The district has hired Costa Mesa-based criminal defense attorney Paul Meyer, who said he is helping it in “working cooperatively with the DA’s office.”

“The issue being addressed with the DA appears to be isolated and does not involve the integrity of the service being provided,” Meyer said. “We expect this matter to be resolved shortly.”