Spill Prompts Audit of Sanitation Operations

State regulators Tuesday ordered an audit of Los Angeles Sanitation Bureau operations in response to a June 17 accident at a Van Nuys treatment plant that caused 3 million gallons of sewage to spill into a park.

Investigators for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board concluded poor contingency planning and communications contributed to the sewage spill.

“The conclusion we reached is the spill was avoidable and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Wendy Phillips, chief of enforcement for the state agency.

City officials were testing an emergency generator for the year 2000 bug when a computer glitch mistakenly closed the gate on a large sewage pipe at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant.

Phillips said Sanitation Bureau Manager Judy Wilson agreed Tuesday to the requests for a comprehensive evaluation of operations at all city treatment plants and contingency plans. Wilson also agreed to hold a conference for other treatment agencies so Los Angeles can share what it learns, Phillips said.

Wilson did not return calls for comment but other city officials said they welcomed a detailed review of treatment plant operations.

“I think that’s appropriate,” Councilman Hal Bernson said. “It [spill] was unfortunate. It just shows that whatever can go wrong will go wrong.”

Bernson and Phillips both said it was important to conduct the test to make sure the system would function in 2000. Older computer systems are considered vulnerable to failure on Jan. 1, 2000, because they were programmed to recognize only the last two digits of years--confusing the year 2000 with the year 1900.

The Los Angeles spill was the first major incident involving Y2K testing and state regulators want to make sure any lessons learned are shared with other agencies in the region, Phillips said.

The audit to be done by the city will look at such issues as whether there is sufficient staffing to safely operate the plants.

“The city is cooperating with us to review certain aspects of the sewage plant operations,” Phillips said. “We want to ensure that the treatment plants are operating faithfully and effectively.”

The state officials asked that the city review and refine its contingency plans for plant problems, including backup electricity sources, and then to conduct more contingency drills.

Phillips said there are no penalties or fines being assessed, but that the audit and other corrective measures will cost the city an undetermined amount of money.

The City Council also has requested a review of the spill and whether similar problems exist at the city’s other four treatment plants.

Even before Tuesday’s meeting with state investigators, the bureau had decided to check the computer programs at other treatment plants and reexamine its testing protocols before conducting any more tests, officials said.