O.C, Laguna Niguel Accused of Ignoring Pollution Evidence

In a new report, regional water-quality officials accuse Orange County and the city of Laguna Niguel of ignoring evidence of a previously undisclosed problem--raw sewage--in one of the county’s most polluted waterways.

Backing claims of local environmentalists, staff of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board say local officials have known for at least seven months that untreated human waste, rather than just animal waste, is fouling Aliso Creek--a charge local leaders vehemently deny.

“It’s typical misinformation and people jumping to conclusions based on the misinformation,” said Ken Montgomery, director of public works for Laguna Niguel.

Meanwhile, local officials are setting the stage for a bureaucratic battle over the creek by seeking to overturn a cleanup order from the regional board.

Reversing an earlier stance, city and county officials have filed formal petitions seeking to overturn the December order, saying it interferes with work already underway and could kill future grant funding for cleanup projects.

The petitions and new report came to light as activists and local officials prepare to face off at a public hearing about the cleanup order Wednesday at the San Diego regional board meeting.

Aliso Creek drains more than 34 square miles of Orange County from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Pollution problems have plagued the watershed. In October 1998, fecal coliform bacteria levels near a storm channel were 225 times the amount considered safe for swimming. At least three spills of sewage or reclaimed water into the creek have been reported since Jan. 12.

In the cleanup order, the regional board charged the city, the county and the county’s flood control district with allowing illegal or illicit discharges that hurt Aliso Creek’s water quality. The order directs the three agencies to immediately take steps to clean up the creek and stop the pollution source, submit a cleanup plan to the board by Feb. 11, monitor water quality weekly and submit quarterly progress reports. The three agencies face fines of up to $5,000 per day or lawsuits if they fail to comply.

In early January, city and county officials said they wanted a hearing only to dispute some of the board’s factual findings. At the time, Montgomery said, “We’re still planning on basically doing anything they ask us to do.”

But according to two petitions filed Jan. 28 with the State Water Resources Control Board, the regional board’s parent agency, the three agencies have asked the state board to drop the cleanup order and grant a 30-day stay of the order’s requirements until the petitions are considered.

James Dragna, an attorney representing the local agencies, said they filed the petitions Jan. 27, the last possible day, only to preserve their legal rights as they seek a compromise, such as deferring any enforcement action until results of a comprehensive study are available in March.

But Montgomery of Laguna Niguel was more blunt.

“This Draconian order is totally inappropriate,” he said Tuesday.

In the petition to the state board, attorney Patricia L. Shanks, who is representing the city and the county, wrote that the order is inconsistent with proven watershed management practices and threatens funding for ongoing creek studies.

Cleanup Order Has Errors, Lawyer Says

“Piecemeal traditional enforcement will not address the problems associated with urban storm water runoff and will impede any further voluntary efforts by Petitioners to find solutions to these problems,” Shanks wrote.

The cleanup order relies on inaccurate information, Shanks contended, and these errors make it impossible to comply with the requirements calling for immediate action and a plan by Feb. 11.

City and county officials have long contested the order’s findings that they allow illegal sewer connections and illegal discharges.

But according to the regional board’s staff report, local officials at a July 14 meeting reported sewage leaking from lines near the approximately 20-year-old Kite Hill housing development, which was settling unevenly into the ground.

“Differential settlement can compromise the integrity of sanitary sewer lines,” wrote Frank Thomas Melbourn, a regional board staff member.

Montgomery said the comments at the meeting were misunderstood. He said officials were discussing a storm drain where they found leaks that were fixed. Officials also were speculating about possible explanations for the high bacteria counts in the creek, and discussed the Kite Hill development’s settling as a possibility. But he said Moulton Niguel Water District videotaped the sewer lines searching for leaks, and ruled them out as a cause of bacteria in the creek.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable how somebody could jump to that kind of conclusion based on factual misunderstandings. They put those two pieces of information--one incorrect and one very minor in nature--and blew this thing into a bogus staff report,” Montgomery said. “It’s unbelievably poor staff work.”

But Melbourn defended his report. Though he cannot recall who said that upheaved sewer lines were leaking, Melbourn said he unmistakably remembers that someone did say it. “I stand by my statement,” he said.

Larry Dees, director of operations at the water district, said videotaping showed no evidence of settlement causing major sewer system leaks. But he conceded that they had checked only the main sewers--not the smaller “lateral” pipes that connect each home to the system. He said checking each of these lines would require special equipment and each property owner’s consent.

Melbourn added that the constant levels of high bacteria throughout the creek also suggest that sewage, rather than animal waste, is to blame. This contradicts preliminary results from a county study released in November, when county environmental resources manager Chris Crompton said the lack of bacteria concentrations or “hot spots” lead investigators to believe that the pollution is caused by animals.

Melbourn disagreed: “It’s very consistent with what we’ve seen for leaking sanitary sewer lines. . . . The levels were high enough to [indicate] human waste.”