Huntington Beach Gets Permit to Send Runoff to Sewage Plant

Orange County’s largest sanitation district on Tuesday granted a permit to Huntington Beach to divert storm drain runoff into the district’s sewage treatment facilities to ensure cleaner coastal water.

The move, which could cost the city at least $150,000 a year, was prompted by the mysterious appearance of high bacteria levels that led officials to close as many as 4.2 miles of Huntington Beach oceanfront during the summer.

Four pump stations close to the beach, three owned by the city and one by the county, pour out an estimated 1 million gallons of runoff a day in the dry season.

The permit from the Orange County Sanitation District covers the portion of the runoff from the city’s three beach stations, which handle about 825,000 gallons a day.

“When you stop and think about it, 190,000 residents live in the city, and you’ve got people watering their lawns, washing their cars, and it doesn’t take long for the runoff to add up,” said Don Noble, in charge of maintenance operations for the city’s Public Works Department.

Huntington Beach is the second Orange County city to divert runoff--typically bacteria-laden waste water from lawns and streets--that otherwise is flushed down curbs and gutters and washed to sea.

Laguna Beach became a pioneer in diverting pollution from beaches last year when it built a simple $10,000 drain that, during dry weather, directs the 2,000 daily gallons of runoff into a nearby sewer pipe.

Laguna Beach now handles 38% of its runoff during the dry season by diverting its drains.

The permit granted to Huntington Beach is for year-round diversion, though the district has told the city it cannot handle both sewage and runoff from major winter storms.

The decision to hook Huntington Beach’s storm drains to the county’s treatment facility is a step in the right direction, but “more, a lot more, needs to be done,” said Chris Evans, executive director Surfrider Foundation, a San Clemente environmental group.

“This is putting a Band Aid on a gash that’s pumping out arterial blood,” Evans said.