Sanitation district may ask cities for help

Bryce Alderton

Sanitation district officials may ask cities to chip in half the money

to treat dry season urban runoff.

For years the Orange County Sanitation District has been searching for

ways to clean up the grime that flows through the gutters in Orange

County and ends up in the ocean.

It has said if cities were willing to help them out financially it

would ease the burden and allow them to treat more diverted urban runoff.

A district committee will meet on April 4 to decide if it should ask

that the treatment of urban runoff come under the umbrella of the

Cooperative Project Program, which is funded equally by the sanitation

district and the cities it serves.

The cooperative project program has existed for three years and is a

partnership between the two entities to clean up sewer leaks.

Sanitation district officials are hoping that the partnership can also

be utilized to treat the waste oils, fertilizers and animal waste .

The committee will be discussing the possibility of expanding the

program to include urban runoff for the first time.

“I don’t know what to expect,” said district spokeswoman Murphy said.

“[The committee] will see [the proposal] for the first time so they’ll

either ask for more information, or put an action item on the board’s

agenda.”

Through the cooperative program the district currently pays half of

the costs of monitoring manholes, the use of cameras to inspect sewers,

the creation of sewer maps and elimination of street flooding over sewer

manholes. The cities pay the other half.

Cities participating in the program are required to prepare master

plans for reducing the amount of water that seeps into pipes, which lead

into the sanitation district.

With the help of the sanitation district, Huntington Beach has secured

more than $3 million in grants from the state since 1998 for sewer

maintenance, said Robert Beardsley, the city’s director of public works.

“More agencies diverting urban runoff away from the storm system is

good and I’m supportive of that,” he said. “But I’m concerned with

getting enough grant money.”

The city currently has nine sewer pump stations that divert urban

runoff to the sanitation district and has plans to divert runoff from

five other pump stations within the city, Beardsley said.

The district hopes to reduce the amount of rain water that leaks into

sewer pipes and enter district facilities by 20%. That would dramatically

cut down on the number of gallons that must be treated.

The district can currently treat 10-million gallons of the estimated

100-million gallons of county water received each day during the dry

season, Murphy said.

Although $142 million has been budgeted for the expansion, the

district is unsure whether this amount will be available in the next 20

years and if it will be enough money at all, Murphy said.

* BRYCE ALDERTON is the news assistant. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at bryce.alderton@latimes.com