City employees questioned in improper sewage dumping

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- One by one, a handful of city staffers are being

called to the Costa Mesa offices of Rutan & Tucker LLP, whose attorneys

are trying to find out who, if anyone, knew that the city was dumping

waste improperly.

City officials will not disclose which employees are to be questioned,

in part because that’s for the attorneys to decide. The firm is

responsible for determining the scope and approach of their investigation

into a city practice of sending sewer trailing -- sand, eggshells and raw

human waste -- to the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine. For 12 years,

the city has mixed sewer trailing with storm drain debris in a receptacle

called a dewatering basin before sending the contents to the landfill.

“The fundamental question is: When this dewatering basin was built,

did the people who built it know that these two piles of stuff -- the

sewer wet well trailings and the storm drain trailings -- shouldn’t be

combined?” Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff said.

The employees being questioned are from the General Services and

Utilities departments. The General Services Department oversees matters

such as waste disposal, but Utilities Department workers also could have

information helpful to the investigation. General Services Department

Director David Niederhaus was in his current post in 1990, when the basin

was built.

Mayor Tod Ridgeway said it’s possible that no one knew the city was

doing anything wrong.

“You’ve got to recognize that the complaint is that we sent a very,

very small amount of fecal material to a land dump,” Ridgeway said,

asserting that it’s minor in comparison with the practice, common in

some cities, of throwing diapers in the garbage. “We take full

responsibility for what happened, even if we weren’t aware of it. The

only unanswered question now is: Did anybody know? And we’re

investigating that.”

If someone did know, it has not yet been determined what, if any,

actions might be taken, Kiff said. Officials are unable to estimate when

the investigation might be complete.

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .