Laguna sewage spill fouls 2 coves, closes highway
Rush-hour traffic screeched to a virtual standstill Thursday in Laguna Beach after officials closed South Coast Highway because of a sewage spill that fouled two coves.
“Traffic is gridlocked,” said Sgt. Jason Kravetz, a spokesman for the Laguna Beach Police Department. “We’ve got everyone down there working on it.”
The leak occurred about 3:30 p.m. when a main line funneling raw sewage from central Laguna Beach to a treatment plant in Aliso Canyon began losing about 50 gallons a minute because of a broken clamp around a valve near Center Street, he said.
Some of the sewage reached the ocean, Kravetz said, causing the beach at Agate and Woods coves to be closed. By 5 p.m., he said, all lanes of Coast Highway were closed in both directions for about a quarter-mile between Bluebird Canyon Drive and Nyes Place.
While traffic was diverted onto Glenneyre Street, city crews, assisted by personnel from the South Coast Water District, scrambled to make emergency repairs.
“There doesn’t appear to be a hole in the pipe,” he said, adding that workers were able to fairly quickly start “catching” the spilled sewage to return it to the sewer system.
He said the repairs were expected to be completed -- and the highway reopened -- some time late Thursday, “though that isn’t certain.”
Kravetz said it was not known how much sewage had escaped.
“We have message-alert boards at [the] city limits, with a SigAlert and messages on freeway alert signs” leading into the city, he said. “We’ve got officers stationed as far out as Laguna Canyon and El Toro Road.”
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