Costa Mesa Sanitary District to seek reimbursement over stalled pipeline
A man walks along a path in Talbert Regional Park where a proposed sewage pipeline would go. Orange County Sanitation District officials said in May that the pipeline had been effectively tabled because of escalating costs and uncertainties about boring under the Santa Ana River.
With an Orange County Sanitation District proposal to install a large sewage pipeline through Talbert Regional Park in limbo, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District is looking to get back some of the money it spent in anticipation of the project’s completion.
County sanitation officials said in May that the pipeline, called the Southwest Costa Mesa Trunk, had been effectively tabled because of escalating costs and uncertainties about boring under the Santa Ana River.
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District, however, has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars installing new pipe in areas around Talbert Regional Park to connect to the expected pipeline, district General Manager Scott Carroll said Thursday.
In 1991, the Costa Mesa district installed 3,252 feet of 12-inch pipe and 116 feet of 15-inch pipe in anticipation of the pipeline being built.
The cost of the project back then was $250,000. Adjusted for inflation, it would be about $666,000 in today’s dollars, Carroll said.
“My board wants to seek some reimbursement from OCSD on this,” Carroll said.
“What the board’s saying is, ‘We invested this money and put this pipe in the ground and it’s not being used,’” he said. “So we’re looking out for our taxpayers.”
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The board hasn’t decided how much money it might ask for but has directed Carroll to contact the county agency to start the conversation.
But Orange County Sanitation District spokeswoman Jennifer Cabral said Friday that the county district’s board has not made a decision on the pipeline project as a whole, “so it’s still on the books at this point.”
Once the county district receives correspondence from the Costa Mesa district, she said, “we would have to evaluate and make a determination on what we’re going to do.”
The plan was for the 4,800-foot-long pipeline to start near the west end of West 19th Street and travel through the southern portion of Talbert Regional Park, then under the Santa Ana River.
The pipe would end at a county wastewater treatment facility near the riverbed in Huntington Beach.
County and local officials have said the pipeline — a joint effort of the Costa Mesa and Orange County districts and the city of Newport Beach — would ensure a more reliable system by moving untreated sewage using gravity, as opposed to pressure applied from pump stations.
Carroll said he thinks it remains a “worthwhile project.”
A group of environmentalists has lobbied against the pipeline, saying it would be disruptive to local wildlife and require construction that would effectively close half the park for years.
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District had planned to decommission five of its pump stations on the Westside that would no longer be needed if the Southwest Costa Mesa Trunk were built. With the pipeline plans on hold, Carroll said the district will focus instead on refurbishing those stations.
An estimate for that work is expected to go before the board July 12. Carroll said he believes it will cost more than $1 million.
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Luke Money, lucas.money@latimes.com
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
