Sewage Spills Top Record in O.C.

Sewer spills have fouled Orange County’s beaches and harbors a record-breaking 51 times this year--an increase of more than 25% over last year.

County officials attribute the jump to crumbling pipes, better reporting of spills, increased scrutiny of problem spots and natural fluctuations.

“We’ve obviously had way too many,” said county Supervisor Tom Wilson, who created the Orange County Coastal Coalition. “All of us--the cities and the county working closely with the water and sewage agencies--we’ve got to work to try to eliminate the causes.”

State water officials are poised to impose costly, stringent new measures to prevent spills. Last week, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board held a public workshop on the new rules.

The proposed regulations cover 32 agencies that collect sewage, mostly cities and sanitation agencies, in northern and central Orange County. The regulations would forbid all spills that reach waterways and require better monitoring and planning for faster cleanup of spills. Fines would be $5,000 per day.

“When we have a sewage spill that reaches surface waters, that’s a violation of the basin plan, that’s a violation of the Clean Water Act and that’s a violation of the [state] Porter-Cologne Act,” said Ken Thiesen, an environmental scientist with the regional board.

Most of this year’s spills were caused by grease and roots blocking sewer lines. But health officials say it’s also possible that more spills are being reported, especially since a state law went into effect two years ago mandating that beaches be closed if tainted by untreated human waste. Last year, officials received reports of 40 spills reaching the ocean.

Swimming in sewage-tainted water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as nausea, vomiting or diarrhea; eye, ear, nose and throat infections; and viral diseases such as hepatitis.

Coastal tourism is a $54-billion industry in California, and coastal communities suffer when their beaches are closed. Consider Seal Beach, where the beach was closed three times this year because of sewage spills miles away in inland cities. A quarter-mile of the city’s beach was closed from July 3 to July 5--a normally lucrative tourist time--by an 8,200-gallon spill originating in Anaheim.

When the beach is closed, “You see tough times on Main Street in Seal Beach,” said City Councilman Shawn Boyd.

Business drops 50% in beach cities during closures, said Boyd, who owns Boyd’s Books on Main Street. The street is a shop- and restaurant-lined strip leading to the beach. “We are visitor-serving. We depend on people from outside the area,” he said.

“This is not a new problem,” Boyd added. “Unfortunately . . . there has yet to be any significant effort on the punitive side to force cities upriver to change their behavior.”

Under the rules proposed by the regional water board, cities and other agencies would have to fix crumbling pipes more quickly and report spills more consistently.

If the rules are adopted, the agencies must immediately implement a stepped-up monitoring plan. In phases over the next five years, agencies also must create a rehabilitation plan for their entire system, a sewer-system management plan, an emergency-spill response plan and a grease-control program. Lines clogged by grease are a common cause of sewage spills.

The requirements would be costly, Thiesen said. A well-operated agency can expect to spend $250,000 to $500,000 upfront and the same amount annually for implementation, he said.

Agencies are worried about the cost--Garden Grove, which inherited a crumbling sewer system four years ago from an independent district, sent a letter to the regional board saying it will have to spend $500 million if the rules are adopted.

But environmentalists and local officials say cities and agencies have to make up for years of overlooking the problem.

“We’ve neglected the infrastructure for decades,” said Christopher J. Evans, executive director of the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation. “Now the problem is way too big to fix in a hurry.”

Monica Mazur, spokeswoman for the county Health Care Agency, said local agencies are growing more aware of the problem. In fact, some of the jump in the number of spills this year occurred because cities were testing their systems. City workers who were studying Newport Bay pollution, for example, discovered leaking lines while conducting a dye test in September. As a result, the water in that section of Newport Bay was closed four days.