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City eyes state loan for sewer work

The city will apply for a state loan to attack trouble in its central

sewer line, work that still only addresses a small fraction of what

Councilman Wayne Baglin called “major problems in our sewers.”

“The only good news is that we have a report,” Baglin said. “The

bad news is what the report says.”

The city has about 95 miles of sewer lines, not including private

lines leading from homes and businesses. The money that the City

Council, at its Tuesday meeting, agreed to go after will focus on

only about five miles, Baglin said.

The primary problems with sewer spills in the city, accounting for

about four of five reported cases, stem from tree roots cleared from

private lines by plumbers that tumble into the city’s main line and

eventually clog the system.

“This does not provide any funding to stop sewer spills caused by

tree roots from private sewer laterals,” Asst. City Manager John

Pietig said. “If we did all these improvements today, we would still

be having the sewer spill problems that we’re having right now.”

Baglin called Tuesday’s approval, along with the city’s recent

action against excessive restaurant grease in sewers, a good

beginning to dealing with mistakes made by councils 20 to 40 years

ago concerning pipe choices and sewer design.

The lack of maintenance since those decisions were made has left

city sewers in their volatile condition, Baglin said.

The city’s main line, the North Coast Interceptor, takes more than

2 million gallons of sewage through the city to a treatment plant in

Aliso Creek canyon every day. Its pipes are made of asbestos cement,

a material so shoddy that a survey discovered that no other city in

Southern California uses it, Baglin said.

“If it pops,” Laguna Beach Taxpayers Assn. spokesman Gary Alstot

said, “it’s going to be an exciting moment.”

The city hired the Boyle Engineering Company to redesign the North

Coast Interceptor and 26 sewage lift stations that take sewage to the

Interceptor, which is a single line always in use, thus incapable of

being studied.

The plan is to construct parallel lines for the two portions of

the Interceptor’s piping under the most pressure, which is scheduled

to start next fiscal year using state money loaned to the city at

about 2.6% interest.

“It was undoubtedly cheaper to install asbestos cement pipes 20

years ago than a more sturdy pipe, but it’s proving to be extremely

expensive in the long run,” Baglin said.

The cost of repairing only the Interceptor and lift stations is

estimated at $12 million, and assessing the problem with tree roots

in private lines would cost millions more.

Baglin said a friend on Thalia Street looked into paying to clear

tree roots from her home’s 40-year-old sewer lines herself and found

that the bill would be $10,000 to $15,000. The city would also have

to cooperate with 6,700 home and business owners.

At a Regional Water Quality Control board meeting last week at

City Hall, one board member and two Laguna Beach residents suggested

that fines be levied against the city for its high rate of sewer

spills, Baglin said, adding that the council is doing as much as it

can to repair decades of mistreatment.

“I feel that the Regional Water Quality Control board initiates

the problem once in a while because it sees to focus more on

reporting than it does on enforcing and cleaning up the water,”

Baglin said. “We’ve found that public agencies believe much more in

studies, spending and stalling than actually achieving anything.”

If a major spill does occur, Baglin said the regional board could

fine the city up to $10 a gallon per day.

City Manager Ken Frank expressed concern with the Interceptor’s

unknown condition, fearing the city might end up doing expensive,

unnecessary work.

“It may be that the line is in pristine condition,” Frank said.

Baglin and the council said the city couldn’t afford to hope for

the best, and needed to take quick action in hopes of avoiding a

major spill, especially with what was considered an extremely

low-interest-rate loan.

Two federal grants are already slated for next year’s budget to

repair 18 of the city’s most problematic miles of sewer lines. That

project, the North Coast Interceptor project and the city’s

requirements upon restaurant owners to keep grease out of their

drains will all be ongoing as the city decides how to tackle the

clogging tree roots.

“We have a long way to go,” Baglin said.

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