Unfixed Pipeline Cited in Seepage

Laguna Beach officials are blaming a contractor’s error for some 30,000 gallons of sewage that have been seeping into the ground over the last 15 months.

Because the waste water never made its way into storm drains or ground wells, there was no apparent health risk, said Steve May, the city’s director of public works. The water trickled through rocks and was absorbed into the soil, he said.

Had it not been for a sewage backup at a Glenneyre Street site of the Assistance League of Laguna Beach two weeks ago, city officials said the leak might not have been detected. When workers dug up the pipe to make repairs, they found it had never been connected to the city’s main line.

“The city had hired a contractor to replace roughly 80 [pipes] last year, and this was one of those,” May said.

It will cost about $3,200 to complete the connection, May said. City officials are checking other sewage lines to make sure they are not leaking.

A similar problem was discovered about a year ago when a sewer pipe was accidentally connected to the wrong line, May said.

In March, a worker constructing a diversion for urban runoff inadvertently allowed cement to flow into a sewer line. The cement made its way into a reservoir that pumps sewage to a treatment plant, clogging the equipment and causing about 18,000 gallons of waste water to overflow.

The contaminated water was halted before it reached nearby Crescent Bay.

In August 2000, the regional water board hit the city with a $60,000 fine for a string of 23 spills that closed beaches for 29 days during an 18-month period. The city has since taken steps to guard against such problems.

By year-end, Councilman Wayne Baglin said, “we’ll have cleaned or repaired 80% of all the city’s old pipes. The ones we aren’t cleaning were done 10 years ago.”