City wants county to clean up discharge

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- What’s all but certain is this: City Council members

will ask Orange County Sanitation District officials to clean up their

act and add another level of treatment before they release waste water

into the ocean.

But when that will happen remains unclear after council members

discussed the issue during a study session Tuesday.

Federal law requires sanitation districts to treat sewage several

times before it goes into the ocean. During preliminary treatment, waste

water is sprayed to control odor and flows through bar screens to catch

large solids. Primary treatment then removes the rest of the solids and

leaves a watery substance. Another procedure, known as secondary

treatment, adds bacteria that consume organic waste and kill about 95% of

viral pathogens.

The Orange County Sanitation District, however, operates under a

waiver that allows officials to release 50% of waste water without taking

it through secondary treatment.

With 236 million gallons going through an outfall off the Huntington

Beach coast per day, the district remains the largest agency in the

country that relies on the waiver.

Granted for five-year periods, district officials must apply for a

waiver extension by early 2003.

“The city has a chance to take a position on this permit,” said

Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff, adding that Councilman Tod Ridgeway

represents Newport Beach on the district’s board of directors.

After about 20 water-quality activists pleaded with city officials to

take a leadership role in changing the situation, Councilman Steve

Bromberg said he’d like to see a resolution opposing the waiver renewal

as soon as possible.

“The ocean really is a toilet,” he said.

But Ridgeway countered that such a step would be premature.

“Personally, I think it’s fair to wait,” he said, adding that the

district is spending several million dollars to figure out whether the

waste-water outfall is responsible for the contamination of the

Huntington Beach shoreline.

“I think [district officials] will learn what they’ve been denying,”

he said. “And that is that there is contamination by the outfall.”

He added that the city’s Harbor Quality Citizens Advisory Committee

unanimously voted to oppose a waiver renewal in May and said he hoped

council members would follow suit in the future.

District officials said they also hope elected officials and residents

would wait on a decision until results from the studies become available

later this year and in early 2002.

“If we do need to change operations to address community concerns, we

will do that and can do that,” said Lisa Lawson, a district spokeswoman.

But “we just want to make sure that the community is aware of what

they’re asking for.”

Apart from an increase in cost that consumers would have to bear,

district officials would also have to find a way to deal with 25% more

solids that are produced during secondary treatment, Lawson said.

“If folks are calling for a cleaner ocean, then we have impacts to the

land with increased truck traffic and more air emissions,” Lawson said,

adding that the solid waste would have to be transported to some place

outside the county.

Besides, the district has been granted waivers because “we have been

able to show that we are not negatively impacting the ocean environment,”

Lawson said.

But Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Seal Beach residents who came

to Tuesday’s council meeting seemed to think otherwise.

“The waiver is only for five years, because it’s presumed that it’s

going to end,” said Newport Beach resident Jan Vandersloot, who has been

involved with the issue since December. “When is it going to end?”

Nancy Gardner, a prominent Newport Beach water-quality activist, told

council members that opposing the waiver also made economic sense for the

city.

“Our houses are worth what they are because they are on the water,”

she said. “It makes a great deal of sense to make it as clean as

possible.”

And Bob Caustin, another water-quality activist in the city, said

Newport Beach officials should take action sooner than later.

“Now is the time for the city of Newport Beach to lead,” he said. “Now

is the time for us to take a stand and say no” to the waiver renewal.