Cities seek improved response to spills

Alex Coolman

FOUNTAIN VALLEY -- Sewage bubbles out of a manhole, running in a slow,

smelly tide toward the ocean.

For swimmers and boaters who encounter such spills, the appropriate

response is easy to make -- get away from the water, and quick.

But for city employees who must react and initiate the cleanup,

figuring out what to do about an unexpected line break can be confusing.

So many layers of bureaucracy typically overlap on a given city block

that the poor soul who first encounters such a situation practically

needs a flow chart to know who to call.

At a Tuesday meeting in Fountain Valley, the Orange County Sanitation

District tried to demystify the matter of responding to sewage spills.

“We’re all involved in spill response, we’re all involved in

maintenance and operations, and [the meeting is] an effort to bring these

efforts together, to make sure we’re all on the same page,” said Lisa

Lawson, a spokeswoman for the district.

The meeting was attended by 20 of the 24 cities and agencies served by

the district, including officials from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa,

county-level health workers and representatives from police and fire

departments. All told, Lawson said, more than 200 officials came to

listen and learn.

The meeting stressed the importance of having an updated plan in place

for dealing with accidental flows.

Representatives of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board

talked about the need to practice responses before real emergencies

occur, while speakers from the Orange County Health Care Agency

emphasized the need for reporting spills accurately and completely.

Newport Beach Deputy City Manager Dave Kiff said his city tries to

keep the procedure simple for city employees who see spills.

“It pretty much goes for anybody that’s out” in the city, Kiff said.

“Whether it’s in a fire truck or a patrol car, the procedure that we’ve

tried to set up is that they call the dispatch office for the police

department.”

The police dispatcher then typically calls the utilities department,

which responds with sandbags and trucks that can suck up the waste.

Despite that policy, said Rick Greaney, beach and storm drain

maintenance supervisor for the city, responses to spills are sometimes

hampered by people who don’t know who to call. And the problem isn’t

confined to city workers. Often residents have no idea who to reach.

“Who do you call first? Who should the citizens call? There’s so much

gray area. They might call here, or they might call the fire department,”

he said.

And it’s sometimes the case, Lawson said, that cities in the watershed

aren’t as coordinated as they could be about dealing with sewage breaks

because of ambiguity about who bears responsibility for acting.

“What we’re trying to move to is that philosophy that whoever sees it

first responds, because you’re preventing the spill from spreading and

becoming a bigger issue,” she said.