Spill closes docks off Bay Club

Deepa Bharath

NEWPORT HARBOR -- The Orange County Health Care Agency closed the

water in front of three Balboa Bay Club docks Wednesday after sewage

spilled from a broken pipe at the club.

It is not yet known how much sewage spilled into the ocean from the

club’s sewage pump-out facility, said Larry Honeybourne, program chief

for the Orange County Health Care Agency.

The spill was discovered after members of Orange Coast College’s crew

team complained of a bad odor, he said.

“The pipe that broke was located in the sea wall,” Honeybourne

explained.

He said samples of the water in the area were drawn Wednesday and will

be drawn again Thursday. The samples will be tested to determine the

level of contamination.

“It takes at least a couple of days for us to get the results,” he

said. “Until then, we won’t know how much spillage has occurred.”

This is not the first sewage spill at the Bay Club. In September, 500

to 700 gallons of raw sewage bubbled out of a manhole and flowed into the

ocean, closing down the beach in front of the club along Bayshore Drive.

The club was found liable for the spill and was fined $5,000 by the

Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board in March. That spill was

said to have been caused by sewage trapped in a grease-clogged line.

The current spill is of a different nature, officials said.

“We don’t know how it happened,” said Henry Schielein, the club’s

chief operating officer. “But I believe it was a disconnected pipe, and

we fixed it as soon as we found out.”

Whether the club will be slapped with a fine depends on what

inspectors find, said Mark Adelson, enforcement section chief for the

Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“We have to look at the circumstances of the spill,” he said. “It’s

too premature to tell. But if we find anything, we may pursue civil

penalties as we have in the past.”

Honeybourne said there was no evidence of a physical spill.

“The water kind of looks grayish and soapy,” he said.

The stretch of water along the area will be closed at least until the

end of the week, Honeybourne said.

“There’s no beach in that area, but we do have commercial divers

jumping in to fix the boats or people diving off the docks,” he said. “We

just don’t want anybody to go in there until we can figure out the level

of bacteria in the water.”