Sewage Overflow Galls Officials

If Los Angeles needed proof that its oldest, most decayed sewer lines should be replaced, it got just that this week, when winter storms caused an unprecedented 20 million gallons to spill from sewers, some of it gushing through busy city intersections and forcing beach closures.

The punishing El Nino-related storms caused overflows in the waste water collection system at 45 locations around the city, dumping millions of gallons of sewage into Santa Monica Bay and into neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles.

Some of the worst problems occurred in South-Central, where a $240-million sewer line replacement program has long been stalled, leaving 11 badly corroded miles of aging pipe unable to handle the onslaught.

“It’s essentially a matter of injustice--racial and environmental--not to have corrected this problem before now,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who Wednesday offered photographs of sewage and storm water gushing through several South-Central intersections. “As it relates to public safety and public health, we are at risk. . . . I don’t think this issue can wait.”

The City Council, which summoned top officials from the bureaus of sanitation and engineering to talk Wednesday about the massive spills, ordered the agencies to develop a plan to deal with future problems. The sewer replacement program, which had been delayed in the council, is only in the early environmental review stage and could take another four or five years to complete.

“This winter is an example of the need for that project,” said City Engineer Sam Furuta. “If the . . . project was in place, we would have been able to contain the waste water. . . . This spill would not have happened.”

Monday’s powerful storm was also a test of the city’s waste water treatment plants, which handled huge flows.

“These plants functioned beautifully despite enormous challenges,” said Judith Wilson, director of the Bureau of Sanitation. “Our issue now is the collection system. . . . We had so much water, it all just started coming out of the manhole covers.”

The Hyperion waste water treatment plant processed 870 million gallons, more than double its usual amount. And the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant handled a record-shattering 195 million gallons in one day, officials said.

Still, in about half a dozen areas of the city, waste water, diluted with storm runoff, gushed out of sewers, flowing through such intersections as Arlington Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 41st Street and Dalton Avenue. Some flowed near schools, such as Manual Arts High south of downtown, and some gushed near homes and businesses in Eagle Rock and on Pacific Coast Highway.

None of that, council members said, should have happened.

“It’s preventable,” Ridley-Thomas said. “I don’t know how we can tolerate sewage in our streets.”

While officials cautioned that the spill was mainly storm water with some sewage in it, they said the spills were nonetheless unacceptable. The overflows were treated with chlorine.

“As far as we’re concerned, if there’s a drop of sewage, it’s too much,” Wilson said.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and others complained that the spill was also extremely detrimental to Santa Monica Bay. She said marine life--”which sometimes ends up being our food”--is damaged or destroyed by such spills.

Environmentalists agreed.

“It’s unacceptable--not to mention illegal--to have raw sewage spill,” said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay. “The storms demonstrated what happens when infrastructure needs are ignored or postponed.”

As for the sewer replacement program, officials said the council still has major decisions to make, including whether to use tunnels or trenches for the lines from downtown to Baldwin Hills.

Either way, the council will face controversy: The construction will inconvenience residents and workers in the area.

“Rebuilding your city’s infrastructure is inconvenient,” Galanter said. “It’s true. It’s very inconvenient and disruptive, but we don’t have a choice.”

Ridley-Thomas said he will push for the new sewer line as quickly as possible.

“It’s time to get down to business,” he said.