Laguna Beach Sewage Spill Is Focus of Probe

State water officials are investigating an April sewage spill that closed a stretch of Laguna Beach’s popular Main Beach. The city has an old, troubled sewer system and was fined by the state last year because of its sewer spills.

Brian Kelley, a senior engineer with the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, said he is investigating the 10,500-gallon spill that closed a one-mile stretch of beach from April 23 to 25. The board is questioning discrepancies between the city’s official report, which said all of the sewage was recovered, and witness accounts that dispute that claim.

The board’s executive officer mailed the city a notice of violation Monday. The city must provide detailed information about the spill by May 25. “Please note that this overflow is a very serious violation . . . and may subject the city to” another fine, the letter said.

City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said the letter is typical of the notices it receives after each spill.

“There’s nothing that I’m aware of that we will change in our report,” he said. “Some of the eyewitnesses very frankly tend to exaggerate.”

Orange County Health Care Agency spokeswoman Monica Mazur said ocean water tests after the spill were “very clean,” so she believes the city recovered all of the sewage.

Frank added: “The sewer spills are certainly unacceptable to everybody, including us, so if [the regional board is] upset about sewer spills, so are we. They have a right, as do our residents and council members, to be concerned and to want to make certain that we’re taking every possible step to stop those sewer spills. I think we are.”

The City Council recently approved adding a maintenance crew, buying another sewer line-cleaning truck and hiring a manager whose only responsibility is the sewer system, he said. The city has raised sewer rates and spent millions in the last few years rehabilitating its aging system.

The city has a history of sewer woes. In August, Laguna Beach agreed to pay a $60,000 fine imposed by the regional board for 23 sewage spills, eight of which closed beaches for a total of 29 days in an 18-month period ending in June.

This year, stretches of the city’s seven-mile shoreline have been closed six times because raw human waste reached the ocean.

Roger von Butow, founder of the Clean Water Now Coalition and one of the witnesses who disputes the city’s account, said, “It has become obvious that my city is not addressing its own deficiencies. I’m going to quote the Bible, ‘We must awaken from the darkness and clothe ourselves in the armor of light.’ ”