Huntington Ordered to Find, Clean Sewage

The state on Tuesday ordered Huntington Beach to examine its ground water and clean up any residue of sewage that oozed for years from leaky sewer pipes for “the protection of the public health and the environment.”

The California Regional Water Quality Control Board demanded that Huntington Beach submit a plan by Feb. 7 that identifies how the city will trace the leaking sewage and required the city to determine whether bacteria from sewage reached the ocean.

A spokesman for the water agency said that as far as he knew, this was the first time a city has been ordered to examine its ground water because of deteriorated sewer lines.

“The thing that is particularly unique to Huntington Beach is the age of their sewer system in areas that are so close to the ocean,” said Kurt V. Berchtold, assistant director of the water board’s Santa Ana region. “That, in combination with the fact that we’ve had a problem with bacterial contamination in the coastal waters there.”

Berchtold has worked for 19 years for the agency, which oversees water quality in north and central Orange County as well as Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

City officials said Tuesday that they have been cooperating with the state. A work plan was submitted to the agency two months ago, and Huntington Beach City Council members are scheduled to vote next week on a $92,000 contract to hire a scientific consultant, said the city’s public works director, Robert F. Beardsley.

“We will comply with whatever they feel they need to satisfy their investigation,” Beardsley said.

Eight 50-foot wells will be drilled in the downtown area to sample the ground water. Those tests should be complete within three months, Beardsley said, adding that the city has already spent more than a year and $2.6 million to reinforce its most deteriorated pipes, some of which were 90 years old.

Tests last year in Huntington Beach uncovered no evidence that leaking sewage had invaded the coast, but state officials said this week that the possibility could not be ruled out.

“The leaked sewage is discharged to ground water in areas where ground water could migrate to and impact the quality of near-shore ocean waters,” according to the three-page cleanup order signed by Gerard J. Thibeault, director of the Santa Ana region. “The fate of the leaked sewage has not been determined.”

In 1996, city officials estimated that 71,324 gallons of raw sewage were being released each day by cracked and broken pipes. Over the years, an estimated 6.6 million gallons escaped, according to the order.

But scientists might not be able to locate the remnants of those leaks.

“Whatever may have been released may not be traceable,” Beardsley said. “It does tend to degrade in soil over time.”

He and his staff have identified nearly $6 million in other needed sewer system repairs, including replacing several old pumps called lift stations. Council members will be asked next month to consider adopting a sewer maintenance fee to finance the work--a concept that was raised in 1996 but never voted on, and rejected by the council last summer.

One councilman, Dave Garofalo, said Tuesday that he’s not inclined to vote for a sewer fee.

“I always believe there is enough money around to fix anything,” Garofalo said. “It’s just a question of priorities. I probably fought the sewer fee [in 1996] and I will probably oppose it when it comes back next month.”

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Sewage Leak Theories

State water officials have ordered Huntington Beach to clean up sewage that spilled during the 1990s. Two theories on how the leaking sewage could have reached and contaminated ocean water:

Theory A:

Sewage seeps through soil to cracked storm drain

Sewage flows to ocean

Theory B:

Sewage leaks into soil, migrates to groundwater

Sea water intrudes into groundwater, carries sewage out to ocean

Source: California Regional Water Quality Control Board

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD/ Los Angeles Times