Huntington Beach May Impose Property Fees to Fix Sewers

Huntington Beach, which last week took the extraordinary step of admitting criminal culpability for allowing massive amounts of sewage to leak from aging pipes, is poised to make another dramatic step: imposing property fees to fix the city’s sewer system.

The decision will be closely watched by environmentalists and officials in other cities, many of whom are grappling with the same problem--how to repair aging, dilapidated sewer lines.

Orange County agencies have identified at least $2 billion in needed sewer upgrades in coming years, though few have determined ways to pay for the improvements. If the City Council approves a $5 monthly fee, Huntington Beach would join a small number of cities that have decided to bite the bullet and charge landowners as a way to reduce the risk of sewage spills.

“If politicians think that the public won’t support paying for this, they’re dead wrong,” said Christopher J. Evans, executive director of the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation. “There has never been a better opportunity in Orange County history to get the public behind paying for improvements to infrastructure.”

The fees, which would be assessed on property owners, would be used to repair and maintain decaying sewer lines--some of which date to 1910.

Twice before, the City Council rejected lower sewer fees. There is now general agreement that some type of charge is needed. The city’s guilty pleas last week for knowingly violating state water laws by discharging pollutants from the sewer system have added a sense of urgency.

“I think more people have a better understanding of the scope of the problem, the seriousness of the problem and the consequences of the problem if it’s not solved,” Councilwoman Connie Boardman said.

The council has been formulating the fee proposal for months and could vote on the measure at its April 16 meeting. If approved, the city would begin charging homeowners in October, officials said.

“It’s an absolute necessity,” Councilman Peter M. Green said. “The sewers are in bad shape. We’ve got to have that fee.”

Aging pipes have long been considered “out of sight, out of mind” across the nation, making sewer repairs a low fiscal priority when measured against schools, police and parks.

The nation’s 16,000 waste-water systems, which treat some 17 billion gallons of sewage a day, face a staggering price tag to update deteriorating systems--about $23 billion annually, according to the Assn. of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies.

“It wasn’t a glamorous element in the budget,” said Wayne L. Baglin, a Laguna Beach councilman who has long pushed for fees to rework his city’s aging sewers.

Last year, Laguna Beach, which has been fined for repeated sewer leaks, increased sewer rates to begin repairing its system.

Now Huntington Beach has found itself in the spotlight over massive sewer leaks.

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On Wednesday, Mayor Pam Julien Houchen pleaded guilty on behalf of the city to three violations of state water laws by failing to report the leaks to state and county health officials. The charges were brought by the district attorney’s office after the grand jury conducted an investigation and city officials were brought in to testify.

In a plea agreement, the city was sentenced to five years’ probation, during which officials must cooperate with a cleanup order, which already had been filed by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board. The city also was fined $250,000 to assess and clean up damage from the leaks.

City leaders say they have been working for years to improve the sewer system. Last fall the city launched a $2-million project to reinforce decaying sewers in the downtown area with plastic piping.

Now, despite growing support for a sewer fee, some in Huntington Beach have misgivings, saying cuts elsewhere should be considered before homeowners are hit.

“I think a sewer fee is probably inevitable,” Councilman Dave Garofalo said. “But the fee as proposed I have some issues with.”

Garofalo said the city should explore all other sources of revenue before imposing a fee.

“I’m not going to say we don’t need an arts program or a senior center, but there are things that are being funded that probably need to be reviewed,” he said.

Others worry that the fee would make residents less likely to support paying for some of the city’s other infrastructure needs, ranging from parks to streets.

“If they pass a sewer fee right now, people will think that’s enough, and it will be difficult to pass an infrastructure bond” later, said Dean Albright, a board member of the citizens group Huntington Beach Tomorrow.

But others, such as Surfrider Foundation’s Evans, say the city has little choice.

“There’s no free lunch. We are paying for decades of neglect,” he said. “I don’t know how much harder Orange County needs to get hit over the head before they start doing something about the problem.”

Daniel Cooper, a San Francisco-based attorney with Lawyers for Clean Water, said it’s a message that needs to extend beyond Southern California.

“It’s a nationwide problem,” he said. “Huntington Beach is a particularly egregious example.”

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* PLEA PREDICAMENT

Dana Parsons’ question: Why’s everybody always pickin’ on Huntington Beach? B3