City Hopes to Improve Spill Reporting System

City water officials were considering Thursday how to improve the reporting of sewage leaks amid an investigation into why a reported broken sewer main went unchecked for two days, dumping an estimated 5.1 million gallons of raw sewage into the San Diego River.

The leak in Del Cerro was reported by a resident Saturday, but it wasn’t until the resident called again Monday that a city employee was dispatched to check it.

“We are looking into making some minor adjustments into how calls are handled,” said Charles Yackly, assistant deputy director of the city Water Utilities Department’s systems division.

“Normally, calls are communicated to our field units, and they respond in an appropriate amount of time,” he said. “In this case, for some reason, that didn’t happen. The addition of a minor check or balance would take care of that.”

City officials are unsure whether the dispatcher who took the call to the 24-hour emergency sewer repair number failed to relay the message to an investigator, or if the investigator got the message and ignored it. Employees were being interviewed Thursday, and an answer should be forthcoming by next week, Yackly said.

By Tuesday evening, workers had diverted the stream of sewage into a nearby manhole by creating a makeshift channel with dirt walls, Yackly said. Work crews repaired the main and put it back into operation by Wednesday night, but will need two more weeks to replace support bedding and encase the main with concrete.

Signs warning people not to swim or fish in the contaminated waters were still posted Thursday along an 8-mile stretch of the San Diego River in Mission Valley, and at the Dog Beach section of Ocean Beach, where the river empties into the sea.

The signs will be removed when tests of water samples taken from the spill area show safe levels of bacteria for several days in a row, said Gary Stephany, director of environmental health services for the county’s Department of Health Services.

The signs are in English only. According to Stephany, recent complaints have prompted county officials to consider posting a sign that can be understood by everyone.

“We already have an international symbol for ‘No Swimming,’ ” Stephany said. “We’re looking into coming up with one for ‘sewage spill.’ ”