Board to Order Halt to Discharge on Beach

About 9,000 gallons of treated effluent carved a 10-foot-wide trench through a popular state beach that has come under scrutiny by state water regulators.

Officials of the Santa Ana Regional Water Board meanwhile said Tuesday that they plan to order the Irvine Co. to stop discharging water into a network of concrete pipes that has been emptying runoff onto Crystal Cove beach, next to a biologically significant marine area.

State law forbids such discharge.

“What it comes down to is that they’re going to have to eliminate this discharge,” said Mark E. Smythe, environmental specialist with the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The decision would mark the first time the Santa Ana water board ordered a halt to such discharges, said Kurt Berchtold of the regional board. He said the action was taken after a public outcry over water runoff through Crystal Cove State Park. Experts increasingly cite runoff as a prime culprit in coastal pollution, and the state’s regional water boards have stepped up enforcement.

No fines are expected, officials said. “In our initial investigation, there’s no indication of any negligence or intent,” Berchtold said.

An Irvine Co. spokesman said the developer would discuss the issue with water officials at a Thursday meeting. The staffs of both the water board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are looking into the drainage problem.

“We need to get these diagrams of the storm water pipes and determine what the source of this water is,” said Steve Fuller, an EPA environmental engineer. He conducted an inspection of the culvert area Tuesday.

State water inspectors were also at Crystal Cove beach on Tuesday after discharged water carved a 10-foot-wide, 18-inch-deep gully from the culvert to the ocean. The water apparently came from an Irvine Co. building site on the bluffs above the park. It escaped from a broken irrigation line, said Berchtold.

Reclaimed water is not approved for drinking, Berchtold said, but is allowed for irrigation and is not a health hazard.

Irvine Ranch Water District spokeswoman Joyce Wegner-Gwidt confirmed Tuesday that a rupture had occurred in a meter, but said it was on a line whose ownership could not immediately be determined. About 9,000 gallons of reclaimed water escaped, she said.

The culvert discharges onto the beach just above the high-tide line at Crystal Cove, which the state has designated as one of 34 areas of biological concern along the California coast. Discharges directly into such areas are illegal under the 1997 Ocean Plan, prompting the action by the water board.

Smythe, the regional water inspector, said his agency learned the developer had joined pipes to the older Caltrans box culvert on the beach.

“We were not aware that had been tapped into by the Irvine Co.,” said Smythe. He said that when his staff inquired about the culvert last fall, the Irvine Co. called it a Caltrans culvert, and told them, “You’ll have to talk to Caltrans about that.”

Members of the Alliance to Rescue Crystal Cove discovered last month that new concrete piping had been connected to the existing Caltrans culvert.

Elbaum of the Irvine Co. said earlier this week that the pipe system is a storm drain for a portion of its Crystal Cove development now under construction on the bluffs above the beach.

A Caltrans spokeswoman said Tuesday she is researching the matter.