Water Officials Order Repair of Sewer Main
State water officials Tuesday ordered the city of Thousand Oaks to mend the breaks in a sewer main that has leaked about 50 million gallons of raw sewage, closing 29 miles of beaches including a stretch in Malibu from the county line to Point Dume.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board in Los Angeles also ordered Thousand Oaks to clean up the mess downstream and make sure the pipeline does not break again. The city must submit three reports over the next 10 days detailing the extent of the problem, steps taken to fix it and what must be done to offset contamination of creeks, the ocean and ground water.
By March 15, the city must submit a plan for fixing the problem permanently or face penalties as high as $5,000 a day.
The massive spill--which will not be staunched until Friday at the earliest--renewed a City Council debate about who is at fault for delaying improvements to the ruptured line.
The board’s order notes that the ruptured sewer main had been scheduled for replacement for the past two summers, after major breaks in 1989 and 1995. And it suggested that the city was to blame for not completing the repair job.
On Tuesday, Thousand Oaks administrators found no fault with the cleanup order. The city plans to spend $4.5 million to shore up the existing sewer main with an interior lining and add a backup pipeline .
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