Review of City Hall started
Paul Clinton
NEWPORT BEACH -- City Manager Homer Bludau has ordered an internal
review of City Hall to determine if any officials knew the city was
violating state regulations when it shipped debris to an Irvine landfill
without proper testing.
City officials halted the 12-year-old practice of sending sewer
trailing -- sand, eggshells and raw human waste -- to the Frank R.
Bowerman Landfill this week after local water-quality regulators deemed
it improper.
Since 1989, the trailings have been routinely pumped out of the city’s
20 wet wells after the bulk of the raw sewage is sent to the Orange
County Sanitation District. The state health code requires cities to test
sewage for the presence of heavy metals before sending it to landfills.
“This is the stuff that would settle to the bottom of the wet well,”
Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said. “We’re not going to landfill it
anymore. We’re going to take it to the sanitation district.”
The city has sent about 140 tons of the debris to the landfill, Kiff
said.
The debris is pumped out of the wells using high-power vacuum trucks
and taken to the city’s maintenance yard.
City workers at the General Services Yard, at Newport Boulevard and
15th Street, would then dry out the debris in a concrete dewatering basin
for three to five days. A 20-ton dump trunk then took the debris to the
landfill every two weeks.
The sewage debris is mixed with storm-drain debris -- including paint,
sediment, animal manure and trash -- when it is sent to the landfill.
The screening for metals is required by state health and safety codes
to keep hazardous waste out of landfills where it could seep into the
ground water.
Several protective linings have been installed at the landfill, said
Kurt Berchtold, a spokesman for the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality
Control Board.
Berchtold said he didn’t think Newport Beach officials were
deliberately trying to skirt the rules.
“This particular waste is not of any more serious problem than any
other waste,” Berchtold said. “The disposal of this waste in the landfill
doesn’t create any particular water-quality concerns.”
State lawmakers have questioned that response. Sen. Byron Sher
(D-Stanford) has said he was dissatisfied with it and will further
investigate the issue.
Assemblyman John Campbell, who represents the city, said Sher’s
condemnation was premature.
“I’m not ready to jump to that conclusion,” Campbell said. “I don’t
think I have enough facts, and I don’t think he does either.”
On Wednesday, the city took its first samples of the waste for
testing.
For about a month, the city has been sending its sewage debris to the
sanitation district. That change is expected to result in additional
costs to the city.
Municipal law firm Rutan & Tucker, based in Costa Mesa, has been hired
by the city to perform a separate review of the city’s practices of how
it handled the debris.
The city will also hire an environmental consultant to review other
sewage management practices, Kiff said.
* Paul Clinton covers the environment and John Wayne Airport. He may
be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail ato7
paul.clinton@latimes.comf7 .
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