Fine for Sewage Spill Is Excessive, Judge Rules

A judge has ordered a state agency to consider reducing a $2.3-million fine imposed on Thousand Oaks after a faulty pipeline caused 86 million gallons of raw sewage to spill into Conejo Creek.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs’ ruling Thursday determined that the evidence presented in court by the state Regional Water Quality Control Board did not justify the hefty fine, which was imposed on the city after the spill in February 1998.

“The fine was way out of line,” Thousand Oaks City Atty. Mark Sellers said Friday. “They shouldn’t be stealing the money from the residents of Thousand Oaks to fund their other programs.”

The city had appealed the fine for the spill, the largest in a string of sewage leaks in Thousand Oaks spanning more than a decade.

The state agency, meanwhile, does not see the ruling as a setback. Because the judge also concluded that the city remains liable for the spill, “this is clearly a win for the regional water board’s efforts,” said Dennis Dickerson, the board’s executive director.

Janavs told the board to reconsider a fine based only on the evidence it has presented in court.

Dickerson said agency officials were still studying the ruling Friday and probably would not vote on a revised fine before spring. Only one of the nine board members who voted to impose the multimillion-dollar fine remains on the panel, Dickerson noted.

Thousand Oaks officials have said they would accept a fine of between $600,000 and $1 million to settle the dispute, which so far has cost it more than $1 million in legal and consulting fees. Any fine larger than that could send the case back before Janavs, city officials said.

The pipeline failure occurred at the height of a historic El Nino weather pattern in which storms pounded Southern California for days and overwhelmed a worn sewer line that spilled the sewage into Conejo Creek. The concrete-reinforced pipeline carried raw sewage to the city’s Hill Canyon Treatment Plant.

The contaminated water coursed through a creek in Camarillo and farmland near Oxnard before dumping into the ocean near Point Mugu. More than 30 miles of coastline was closed for 29 days, affecting beaches from Malibu to Oxnard. Thousand Oaks paid about $180,000 to farmers for damaged fields.

The rupture came nearly two years after a public works study determined that the 30-inch-diameter pipe needed to be replaced and suggested homeowners be assessed an extra $5.20 monthly to pay for repairs. Sellers said that even if the city had voted for the improvements, the replacement would not have been completed before the 1998 flooding.

But the blame for the spill clearly lies with Thousand Oaks officials, said William Abbey, a state assistant attorney general who worked on the case.

The Thousand Oaks City Council failed to act in time, Abbey said, for fear of political fallout from a fee increase.

“I’m moderately disappointed because there was clearly sufficient evidence,” Abbey said of the ruling. “They could have and should have taken steps before this happened to upgrade the sewer line. [Public works officials] said, ‘Look, if we get a huge storm this line will blow and there will be a huge spill.’ And lo and behold, it came about.”

Previous to the 1998 spill, about 800,000 gallons of raw sewage poured from a Thousand Oaks pipeline over three days in 1989. In 1995, 12 million gallons spilled in one week.

Mayor Ed Masry disputed Abbey’s remarks and said the city’s record in regard to sewage leaks is no worse than other cities of similar size.

“I don’t know of a city in California that hasn’t had a sewage spill or had pipes break,” Masry said. “We didn’t win the whole war because they didn’t wipe out the fine, but we did win a substantial victory.”