North County

State Water Quality Control District and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials heard environmentalists argue Monday that offshore ocean waters are too polluted to allow the Escondido and San Dieguito sewer districts to lower treatment standards on 11 million gallons of wastewater they dump daily into the waters off Cardiff.

Representatives of Escondido’s Hale Avenue Wastewater Treatment Facility and the San Elijo Water Pollution Control District, which handles sewage from the Cardiff and Solana Beach area, told the state and federal hearing officers that they seek to reduce treatment standards from primary levels to secondary levels--an adjustment sought by most other coastal sewer districts.

Nancy Singer, a Newport Beach activist who has been successful in thwarting two other such sewage treatment downgradings in south Orange County, told the board meeting in San Diego that dangerous viruses are in the coastal waters. The pollution would be increased by approval of the two districts’ petition, she said.

EPA hearing officer Patricia Eklund said that the federal agency has given its preliminary approval to the downgraded treatment level, but that federal officials will follow the lead of the state Regional Water Quality Control Board.

A decision is to be made at the board’s Sept. 16 meeting.