Sewage Spill Closes Doheny

Orange County health officials closed the waters off Doheny State Beach on Monday after 42,100 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the ocean.

The spill occurred several miles inland at the relatively new Los Flores pump station operated by the Santa Margarita Water District at Antonio and Oso parkways near Rancho Santa Margarita. It flowed from Trabuco Creek into the already heavily polluted San Juan Creek, then into the often troubled waters off Doheny State Beach.

Steady rains probably caused the sewage spill but also helped reduce the damage by diluting it, officials said.

The pump lost power Sunday after an electrical short, likely caused by moisture from the heavy rains, a water district official said. Nearly 54,000 gallons of sewage overflowed at the pump.

District workers were able to recapture 11,900 gallons and return them to the treatment system, but the remainder flowed to the ocean.

The pump was out of action for several hours, said John Schatz, general manager of the water district.

“It’s not a small station. It picks up the Las Flores area, which is fairly well developed, so there’s quite a lot of flow.”

It was the county’s second-largest sewage spill this year, according to the county Environmental Health Division. On Jan. 12, a 985,000-gallon sewage spill forced a shoreline closure a mile in either direction of Pico Drain in San Clemente. Officials said 888,000 gallons were recovered in that spill.

The area affected Monday is about 1.5 miles of coastline, which will be closed at least 72 hours, said Monica Mazur, a spokeswoman for the county Health Care Agency. It is the ninth closure this year because of a sewage spill at county beaches, bays or harbors.

Mazur said the closed-off stretch would have been almost double in length if not for the breakwater at Dana Point Harbor keeping the untreated contaminants from spreading.

“If that breakwater hadn’t been there, it would have been the same distance up coast as well as down coast,” she said.

Schatz, the water district manager, said the electrical circuit that powers the station, one of 22 stations the district has, also powers its warning system. When the pump failed, so did the alarm system that would have alerted district personnel. Unlike much of the county’s aging sewage infrastructure, the station and pump, built in 1994, are relatively new.

“We think [the pump] was not constructed properly. It could be an imperfection that was built into it,” Schatz said.

He added that this station is the only one constructed to power both the pump and alarm system, and that it will be corrected.

Monday’s heavy rain diluted the spill enough that the relatively large amount of sewage was still just a fraction of the total flow of water into the ocean, Schatz said.

“We are responsible for the cleanup to the extent we can capture and recover the spill,” Schatz said. “Once it gets into the ocean, it’s gone.”

The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board could assess fines or other penalties after it investigates.

“Whether there will be a fine is not a foregone conclusion,” said John Robertus, director of the water board. “We will require the discharger to answer a lot of specific questions, under penalty of perjury.”

He said it will be several weeks before a determination is made.

San Juan Creek already is under scrutiny by county and state officials because of persistent elevated bacteria levels at its mouth.

Besides Monday’s closure at Doheny, all of the county’s coastline was under an advisory against swimming or surfing for 72 hours after the rains stop because of the high bacteria levels generated by storm runoff, Mazur said.

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Doheny State Beach closed

42,100-gallon spill flows down two creeks to Pacific Ocean