|
By Hector Becerra
Los Angeles Times
December 29, 2006
The Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County has agreed to
pay more than $2.5 million to settle a dispute over a massive
spill earlier this year that sent more than 800,000 gallons of
sewage into the Pacific Ocean and coastal groundwater
supplies.
The agency's agreement with the Los Angeles Regional Water
Quality Control Board and Santa Monica Baykeeper avoids what
was expected to be a prolonged legal fight over the spill,
which was the largest into the Santa Monica Bay in a decade.
"This was a major spill, and it required an important and
unequivocal response in terms of the penalty to be
assessed," David Nahai, water quality board chairman,
said Thursday.
The Jan. 15 spill resulted in 65,000 gallons of untreated
wastewater flowing into the ocean, and an additional 780,000
gallons reaching groundwater supplies beneath Manhattan Beach
and Hermosa Beach.
The exact cause of the spill has not been made known. It
closed beaches for several days.
But a preliminary county investigation found that all four
safeguards designed to prevent a major sewage spill failed at
the pumping station. Both the electrical system and emergency
backup didn't work, the report found, nor did an alarm system
that would have immediately alerted officials. A separate
system designed to measure the depth and pressure inside the
pumping station also failed.
After the incident, sanitation district officials vowed to
make sure that other pumping stations didn't have similar
problems. Nahai said that as part of the settlement, the
Sanitation Districts would be released from liability for 93
sewage spills in the last five years.
"But that doesn't release them from doing something about
the underlying causes," Nahai said, adding that a letter
was sent to the Sanitation Districts telling it to investigate
the cause of the January spill.
Most of the settlement money will fund environmental research
programs, including $2.2 million for the San Gabriel River
Discovery Center, which is under construction at Whittier
Narrows.
Some of the money will go to study bacteria sources in the
Redondo Beach area.
Officials at the Sanitation Districts could not be reached for
comment. But in a statement, one official said the agreement
would allow the agency to move forward.
"The settlement agreement makes additional and critically
needed funding available for community-based research and
education on water quality," said Jim Stahl, chief
engineer of the Sanitation Districts. "We strive for zero
overflows, but short of achieving this perfection, I cannot
think of a better outcome to the 93 overflows."
The Manhattan Beach spill prompted debate about what more
could be done to prevent sewage spills.
Some environmentalists have called on officials to retrofit
all pumping stations with underground storage facilities to
capture leaking sewage that would otherwise flow onto streets
and beaches, as well as into flood-control channels and the
ocean. Sanitation district officials said such structures
would be hugely expensive.
The county sanitation agency had begun upgrading aging — and
less versatile — equipment, specifically the electrical
control panels at the Manhattan Beach pumping station,
according to the report on the incident.
Nahai said the agreement was important because the Sanitation
Districts and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control
Board would have to continue to work together.
"This relationship is going to continue," Nahai
said. "The parties in this case came to the conclusion
that it's better since there's been wrongdoing because of
negligence, to face up to the penalty rather than pour money
into the dark drain of litigation."
He said the water board had been stuck in a quagmire of
litigation with inland cities over urban runoff for upward of
five years, costing all sides millions of dollars.
|
