A Stink Brewing Over Offshore Sewage

Angered by a rash of beach closures and public health warnings, environmentalists and some coastal officials are demanding an end to a federal waiver that allows the Orange County Sanitation District to discharge moderately treated sewage four miles out into the ocean.

Though many pollutants have been removed, the effluent still contains high concentrations of bacteria, human waste and other organic matter compared to sewage being piped offshore by the nation’s other public sanitation agencies.

“Sometimes I wonder how hard we have to get hit on the head before we learn that we can’t keep treating the ocean like a garbage can,” said Christopher J. Evans, executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, a San Clemente-based environmental organization.

Evans is among those calling on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to refuse to renew the sanitation district’s special waiver from the federal Clean Water Act--a law Congress passed in 1972 to keep the nation’s waterways safe for swimming and fishing.

The waiver exempts the sanitation agency from having to conduct a more rigorous, and costly, treatment process that would remove many of the contaminants.

A local battle is brewing over the exemption, which is up for renewal late next year, and several Orange County coastal cities are expected to lobby heavily against it.

In Newport Beach, the city’s harbor quality advisory committee recently voted to oppose the waiver, and the City Council will probably follow suit, said Councilman Tod Ridgeway, who also sits on the sanitation district board.

Huntington Beach and Seal Beach are expected to take up the matter this summer.

Topping their concerns is the massive plume of sewage formed at the sanitation district’s ocean “outfall”--effluent created by the 243 million gallons of waste water from showers, dishwashers, toilets and sinks that is piped out to sea each day.

Some researchers suspect that the plume may have drifted back toward the coast, causing the devastating 1999 shoreline closures off Huntington Beach.

Additional Treatment Could Cost $400 Million

Vocal environmentalists are already demanding that the sanitation district switch to the more rigorous treatment process similar to treatment standards adopted years ago by almost all of the nation’s 16,000 sanitation agencies.

The cost, however, would be enormous--upward of $400 million. That alone makes it a difficult decision, some sanitation district board members say.

“We have some environmentalist tree-huggers out there who, instead of using common sense, always want to overreact with a big clobbering of the taxpayer,” said John M. Gullixson, a sanitation district board member and Yorba Linda city councilman. “My job is to represent the taxpayer here.”

Since 1977, the EPA has been allowed to grant Clean Water Act waivers to agencies that discharge effluent into deep ocean water with strong currents--if doing so would not harm the environment or public health. Congress approved the exemption, thinking there was no reason to spend millions of tax dollars on an intense, full-force treatment process if it was unnecessary.

The Orange County Sanitation District is one of 36 agencies nationwide that have been granted a waiver. The district, which services 2.2 million people in central and northern Orange County, is the largest waiver-holder in the nation.

The district’s first waiver was approved in 1985 by the EPA and the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Board, which also oversees the sanitation district. Both in 1985, and when the waiver was renewed in 1998, there was no indication that discharged effluent was causing a problem, said Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer of the Santa Ana board.

There wasn’t much controversy either, he said. The sanitation district had queried ratepayers about adopting the more rigorous and costly “secondary treatment” sewage process, and most were against paying the additional costs, Berchtold said.

“Whether they would get that same answer today--I don’t know,” Berchtold said. “Obviously, there’s a lot more focus on coastal water quality issues in general and bacteria contamination in particular. The public seems to be much more sensitive to those kinds of issues than they were five years ago.”

An EPA official declined to predict whether the waiver would be renewed.

“In terms of EPA, we’re not either for or against waivers. We’re just applying the law and regulations. If it meets the regulations, then we’ll make a positive decision,” said Terry Fleming, the environmental scientist at the EPA’s San Francisco office who has worked on the sanitation district’s waiver for nine years.

The final decision may, in part, hinge on the results of a $4.1-million study being conducted this summer. The study, funded by the sanitation district and others, will test a theory by UC Irvine researcher Stanley Grant that the district’s sewage plume is being brought back to shore by internal waves, tides and the ocean water-fed cooling system of the nearby AES power plant.

Environmental activists say they already have evidence that the plume is causing harm. A 1996 study showed the plume had moved inland, reaching less than two miles off Newport Beach and about two miles off Huntington Beach.

Another study showed that fish near the outfall have liver lesions, says activist Jan Vandersloot, who organized the Ocean Outfall Group, a grass-roots environmental group.

Robert P. Ghirelli, manager of technical services for the sanitation district, said it’s impossible to draw conclusions from those studies because they lacked adequate sampling and comparative data.

The effluent discharged by the district is a 50-50 blend of waste water that undergoes primary or secondary treatment. During primary treatment, settling basins and chemicals are used to remove most solids, and “scum”--mostly oil and grease--is skimmed off the top. After this, some of the solids have been removed.

In secondary treatment--a stage used by the vast majority of the nation’s sewage districts--microorganisms eat organic wastes, removing even more solids.

The district’s critics want the sewage to undergo both primary and secondary treatment--the standard for the vast majority of the nation’s sanitation agencies.

Officials Waiting on Sewage Study Results

The majority of sanitation district board members favor the status quo, though they offer one caveat--wait and see what the summer study reveals.

Board member Brian Donahue, who represents Stanton, said that in the past, the sanitation district has passed environmental requirements “with flying colors,” so he questioned the wisdom of adopting a multimillion-dollar treatment process before all the facts are in.

“We don’t have any proof yet, and we’re not going to do anything to jeopardize what we’re doing now unless we have proof,” Donahue said.

Others agreed, but acknowledged that if this summer’s study determines that the sewage plume is causing health concerns along Orange County shorelines, the district will take appropriate action.

“We’re dead serious about keeping those beaches clean,” said sanitation board member James Ferryman, who represents the Costa Mesa Sanitary District. “If we find out our plume is the cause of the beach contamination, then we’re going to do something very proactive about it and try and solve it. If it means secondary treatment or tertiary treatment, we’ll do what it takes. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all premature now.”

If the plume is found to be the culprit contaminating the county’s shoreline, installing a secondary treatment process may not be the best way to solve the problem, said district spokeswoman Lisa Lawson.

Other less costly treatment options available include disinfection, ozonization, ultraviolet light and microfiltration--all of which are being reviewed in case the district needs to change treatment level because of this summer’s study.

The district’s critics say it’s money--the about $400-million price tag to install a full secondary treatment process--that’s the main sticking point. Vandersloot says the sanitation district has that in its reserves, or that it would cost a nickel a day per person.

“It’s to everyone’s advantage to have a clean ocean,” he said. “What we have to do is persuade the board not even to apply for a waiver, but to do the right thing and plan for full secondary treatment of their discharge.”

Sanitation district officials say the reserves are needed to fund about $1.5 billion in capital improvements over the next 20 years.

If required to adopt the treatment process, ratepayers would be socked with the bill: A family of four could pay $75 per year more, and some businesses could be hit with an $120,000 annual rate hike.

This isn’t Southern California’s first battle over sewage effluent being pumped out to sea. The Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles and Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay fought, and helped win, the battle to make sewage plants in Los Angeles city and county switch to full secondary treatment.

“The one truth about environmental and public health issues is we’re frequently surprised that what we thought was safe and effective is in fact not safe and not effective,” said David Beckman, a senior attorney with the defense council. “There are many good reasons to upgrade the [Orange County] plant based on what we know today.”