State Fines Sewage Plant for Chronic Violations

Citing a pattern of chronic pollution violations, state water quality authorities have hit operators of a local sewage plant with fines for waste water releases they say exceed clean water limits.

For the last 10 years, effluent from the plant often exceeded pollutant limits established to protect Calleguas Creek and ground water sources in the Las Posas Valley, which provide water for domestic use and irrigation, state water quality authorities said.

During that period, the Ventura County Waste Water District operated the plant in a manner that sent at least 190 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the environment, investigators said. The plant, which is four miles south of town and serves 28,000 Moorpark residents, is too small to comply with the regulatory limits.

In an investigation that culminated this spring, regulators say they documented dozens of instances when two streams of effluent exceeded waste discharge limits over the last three years.

They included 112 million gallons of effluent discharged from the plant into Arroyo Las Posas, and another 80 million gallons of waste water containing excessive quantities of “suspended solids” discharged into 31 settling ponds, which then leaked into the soil.

Because the danger to the environment appeared to be minimal, state officials in May imposed a reduced fine of $105,313--substantially less than a $1.1-million penalty that plant operators could have received under the Clean Water Act.

About 75% of the fine will be used for ongoing studies of pollution in the Calleguas Creek watershed, which drains fast-growing east county cities and empties into Mugu Lagoon.