Disaster Status May Be Sought for Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach’s top official said Friday that he may ask the City Council to declare a local disaster area if work crews can’t find the source of a sewage leak that has fouled the water for two months, closed beaches and caused financial losses at local businesses.

City Administrator Ray Silver said he intends to monitor the progress of the crews over the weekend and, if no progress is made, recommend Monday that the council take action.

By declaring a local emergency, city officials can apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for money to help cover more than $50,000 the city has spent on the sewage investigation. The declaration also would allow business owners who are insured to recoup revenue lost during the closure.

The Orange County Sanitation District alone has spent more than $400,000.

Originally, the leak was believed to be from a pipeline at Huntington State Beach. The state has been billed about $30,000 for inspections of its connector pipes to a main sewer operated by the sanitation district, said Michael Tope, a regional state parks superintendent.

“We paid the bill for inspections up until they found out it wasn’t our pipelines that were causing the problem,” Tope said. Still, the state has lost more than $250,000 in revenue from the beach closure, he said.

“We’ve been shut down since July 1, and that takes a toll,” Tope added.

Silver said beach hotels and restaurants also have lost business, but he did not have an estimate.

“There are still a lot of things to weigh here” before a disaster zone can be declared, Silver said. A key concern is whether a local emergency “misconveys” a larger problem than actually exists.

Silver said tests showed the cleanliness level of the seawater off Huntington State Beach continues to fall below safety standards, but “the good news is that levels are down now everywhere else for two days in a row.”

“There is good news in that the level of contamination in the water levels today is one-third of the maximum it can be,” he said. “At this point, we are optimistic about the test results.

“We will wait until Monday to see if the numbers continue to be low and will wait for the health department to determine when it’s appropriate to open the beach,” Silver said. “We really want the whole beach clean because it affects everybody.”

As a task force continued to search for the cause of the mysterious leak, which has closed a 4.2-mile portion of the coast, downtown business leaders met Friday to try to come up with “creative events” to lure inland residents to the seaside town.

The city has slashed parking rates from $7 to $1, and shop owners are suggesting public concerts and beach-walk sales to bring in business and avoid an economically disastrous holiday weekend.

“For Labor Day, we’re thinking about a beach walk where all the merchants put their merchandise outside,” said Steve Daniel, president of the Downtown Merchants Assn. The city would foot the bill for concerts and other entertainment.

Meanwhile, members of a multi-agency task force will continue to meet during the weekend.

Health and sanitation officials had suspected this week that the widening of the channel near Talbert marsh might have played a role in the leak. Tests, however, proved negative, said Charles McGee, laboratory supervisor for the Orange County Sanitation District.

“We can’t rule it out,” McGee said, “but we can’t implicate it.”

A consultant was hired to review records and permits going back 50 years for information on early channels, septic tanks and discharges.

Over the weekend, contractors are scheduled to dig holes in the sand from the parking lot at Newland Street to the shore. Workers will place steel pipes 10 feet underground to collect ground-water samples, which will be sent to a laboratory for testing.

Already, more than 60 such drilling operations have been performed near Newland.

Though bacteria levels have receded in some areas, county health officials have made it clear that they will not reopen the beach until the leak is found and repaired.

“We want to have some assurance that we don’t open the beaches only to keep closing them,” said Monica Mazur, an environmental health specialist with the Orange County Health Care Agency.

Times staff writer Maria Elena Fernandez contributed to this report.