Don’t Renew Sewage Waiver

With all the controversy surrounding water quality off Huntington Beach, one would think that disclosure of important information would be a priority. Not so, apparently, at the Orange County Sanitation District, where the prevailing philosophy seems to be the less said the better.

The district long has maintained that partially treated sewage discharged four miles out remained well offshore. These assertions had important ramifications for the ability of local communities and environmental groups to evaluate the waiver the district has from federal clean water standards. While many districts around the country are required to treat sewage to a higher level of cleanliness, the district has enjoyed a pass, and, of course, it has realized a considerable saving.

But the questions persist about the water off Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, and the possibility that the district’s discharge of huge quantities of partially treated water is affecting the beaches. Last month, the Orange County Grand Jury said the county’s largest sanitation agency had withheld sensitive water-quality reports, including a study that the agency did not disclose for five years that mapped the offshore sewage plume.

The study, which started in the mid-1990s, was made available to regulatory agencies, but not to the cities with the most obvious stake in local water quality. The cities have been trying to deal with the consequences of poor water quality to their local economies, and obviously would benefit from knowing more. Several cities that belong to the district already have gone on record as opposing another waiver.

The study found that the partially treated waste water discharged four miles offshore actually washed back to within 11/2 miles of Newport Beach, far closer than previously acknowledged.

The grand jury proposed the obvious remedies, releasing agency studies to the public in a timely fashion, publishing study results, putting study topics on the Web and providing public access to research data. The district replied appropriately that it wanted to improve the way it communicates with the public. But why did it have to come to this?

The agency, as the grand jury noted, is largely “self-monitored,” that is, responsible to regulatory agencies but enjoying latitude in deciding what it reveals to the public. Now we know that its latitude has been exercised to the maximum.

All of this comes at a time when the district is deciding whether to seek a renewal of the waiver, which is up in 2003. As we have said before, it should not be renewed.