City leaders vow to stop sewage dumping bill

Paul Clinton

City leaders are hopping mad about a federal bill that could give

boaters the green light to dump partially treated sewage into Huntington

Harbour.

When told about the bill, introduced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.)

earlier this year, Mayor Debbie Cook said the proposal is absurd.

“Has [Saxton] ever taken a swim by the harbor,” Cook asked

rhetorically. “Why would anybody support such a thing.”

Saxton’s bill, introduced Feb. 5 and known as the Recreational Waters

Protection Act, would amend the Clean Water Act to do two things: revise

the standards for bacteria levels and allow boats equipped with a “marine

sanitation device” to unload their waste in protected water bodies.

The devices disinfect sewage by killing bacteria but not viruses.

A direct result of the bill’s passage would be the loss of the

harbor’s federal distinction as a “no-discharge harbor.”

The Environmental Protection Agency, in 1976, granted the harbor that

designation to prevent boaters from discharging their waste.

As the law now stands, boaters must use any one of a handful of “pump

out” stations to release their sewage.

Cook and other city leaders said they would kick-start efforts to

defeat Saxton’s bill.

“We’re going to mount an effort against it,” Councilman Ralph Bauer

said. “That’s a lot of nonsense.”

Bauer, who owns a boat and lives in the harbor, said he supports

fining boaters who empty their heads into the harbor.

The bill is the second incarnation of a Saxton proposal. The New

Jersey congressman, who lists boating as a hobby on his Web site,

introduced a similar bill on May 3, 2001. That bill died in committee.

The new bill has been referred to the water resources and environment

subcommittee.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) was traveling and could not

be reached, but press secretary Aaron Lewis said the bill isn’t the right

approach to protecting the nation’s harbors.

“Its intentions are good, but it’s pretty unrealistic,” Lewis said.

“There are better ways to go about ensuring water quality.”

Not surprisingly, environmentalists have also voiced their displeasure

about the bill.

Garry Brown, the executive director of Orange County CoastKeeper and

harbor resident, blasted the bill as a way to “totally diffuse” important

environmental legislation.

“It would be counterproductive,” Brown said. “[The Clean Water Act]

gives government the tools to clean up the problems.”

Last summer, Brown initiated a massive testing effort in the harbor as

a way to get it listed on a federal list of impaired water bodies.

Much of the harbor’s poor water quality can be traced to polluted

urban runoff brought in via several channels and a high number of “live

aboards,” people who pay little money to live on a boat.

Officials in Newport Beach are also fighting the bill, which would

also affect Newport Harbor and Upper Newport Bay. Mayor Tod Ridgeway

voiced opposition to the bill in a May 22 letter to Rep. Chris Cox

(R-Newport Beach).