Fears of Sewage Spill Delay Y2K Test at Plant

Los Angeles officials will delay tests for year 2000 computer readiness at the Hyperion Treatment Plant until they are certain that there will be no sewage spills that could endanger Santa Monica Bay.

In an emergency briefing of the city Public Works Board on Friday, Sanitation Bureau Manager Drew Sones said tests of Hyperion’s backup electrical system--scheduled for next month--will be delayed while testing procedures are reexamined.

A computer glitch during a Y2K test earlier this week sent nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage spilling from the Daniel C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, forcing the closure of about 10 acres of Woodley Avenue Park until at least Monday.

Hyperion treats 370 million gallons of sewage a day--nearly six times more than the Tillman plant.

“No other drills will be done until those [test] protocols are reviewed again,” Sones told the board.

Mark Gold of the environmental group Heal the Bay lauded the decision to delay testing.

“Based on the Tillman incident, additional planning to assure there is not a similar or larger spill at Hyperion is extremely prudent,” Gold said.

Public Works Board members were particularly troubled that it took an hour and 15 minutes before officials realized they were losing millions of gallons of sewage.

During a test of a backup power system, the computers were switched off, triggering a pipe to close by mistake and causing the backup.

Robert Birk, the Tillman plant manager, acknowledged that officials erred by not having someone stationed outside to watch for problems. A park ranger on his rounds called plant operators at 12:05 a.m. Thursday to report the spill, Birk said.

“Looking back, we should have had somebody out there,” Birk told the board. “We thought we had everything covered. Obviously, we didn’t have every detail covered.”

Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true.

Initially, city officials said 4 million gallons had spilled. They revised that estimate Friday to 3 million gallons, still a significant spill, officials said.

The Tillman test, and similar drills at the city’s other three treatment plants, are aimed at determining whether the facilities can use backup generators and power sources to continue treating sewage if Y2K problems cause an interruption to the city’s main power system.

Birk disclosed Friday that when the power was turned off at Tillman about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, a problem with the diesel generator forced engineers to shut it down while a plug in an oil system could be cleared.

When the power was turned back on, a computer sent an improper signal that closed a gate in an 8-foot-diameter pipeline carrying waste to Hyperion. Sewage backed up and spilled from the maintenance hole in the park starting about 10:50 p.m., Birk said.

Birk blamed the problem on bad programming language put into the computer when it was installed in the 1980s.

The department plans to check the programming language at Hyperion, the Terminal Island Treatment Plant and the Los Angeles-Glendale Water Reclamation Plant before trying tests at those facilities, officials said.

“The good news is, should we lose power on Jan. 1, we will be able to operate the plant,” Birk told the board.

Later Friday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to spend $7 million for equipment purchases to bring Sanitation Bureau computers into Y2K compliance, so they can properly read the date when 1999 changes to 2000.

The funding plan, which was scheduled before the Tillman spill, will allow the department to upgrade about 800 pieces of machinery that have been identified as needing upgrades--including new software and computer chips, Sones said.

On Friday, golfers, cyclists, inline skaters and joggers seemed oblivious to the spill that shut down Woodley Avenue Park at the northern edge of the recreation area. Several people said they had heard about the spill, but the presence of raw sewage didn’t keep them away.

“I was scared when I first heard about it,” said Jill Latham, an actress and jogger from Northridge. “But I thought, ‘Oh well, bad things happen.’ ”

Golfer Jim Abro of North Hills said he called the clubhouse at Woodley Golf Course, across the street from the closed park, before heading out to the links Friday.

“I thought that I might have to find a tee time somewhere else,” he said, “but they said the golf course was open.”

Despite the presence of raw sewage, and a sign warning them to keep off the grass, Bianca Castelenos of Lake View Terrace and Marina Ibarra of Reseda refused to change their walking routine.

The women said they always walk on the grass on the east side of Woodley rather than across the street on the paved path because they fear traffic on Woodley.

Castelenos said: “I’m more concerned that people in cars will run me over than by raw sewage.”