Beach Could Reopen This Week, Officials Say

A 600-foot strip of coastline that was closed last weekend by a sewage spill could reopen to swimmers this week, city and county officials said Wednesday.

The beach was closed Sunday after a tangle of roots and rags in a main sewerage line caused a backup at nearby businesses.

About 40,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled to the beach and into the ocean, city engineer Steve May said.

The spill affected the coastline north of Main Beach, below Heisler Park. The closure also included a cove known as Rockpile.

County workers have been conducting daily water tests, and results Wednesday indicated the beach could reopen today or Friday, said Larry Honeybourne, water quality supervisor for the Orange County Health Care Agency.

City workers learned of the spill at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, May said.

“There was a period of about an hour to an hour-and-a-half that it seems it was running and that nobody reported it,” May said. “As soon as we got the call, we had somebody on the scene within 15 minutes and within another five minutes they had it cleared.”

Because there have been a number of sewage spills in Laguna Beach over the past decade, the city has bought backup generators to keep pump stations operating in a power failure and invested in a computerized system to alert workers when any pump station equipment fails.

On Wednesday, city workers found a slight offset in a pipeline joint where the rags and roots could have snagged, May said.

A project to repair the joint will be proposed as part of next year’s budget, he said. In the meantime, city workers will inspect the pipe regularly to prevent further problems.