Study of the plume continues

Paul Clinton

Orange County Sanitation District leaders have extended three ongoing

studies of their sewage plume, on the heels of a $5.1-million study’s

failure to pinpoint the cause of surf zonecontamination.

On Friday, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board gave a

green light to the studies at its monthly meeting, held at City Hall in

the heart of a city that has seen the damaging public-relations hit

following bacteria contamination of its beaches.

The water board unanimously approved the studies to map the patterns

of ocean currents, create scientific models to examine the plume and

compare the district’s waste discharges with data from Ventura and Los

Angeles counties.

The new studies have been included in the district’s 2002-03 budget at

a cost of $171,000 for the work.

Every year district officials are required by federal law to present

ways they are analyzing the effect of their plume on the ocean

environment, said Kurt Berchtold, the board’s assistant executive

officer.

“Some of the studies would provide some additional information that

would help to better understand the plume,” he said. “They are required.”

The district, via a federal waiver, discharges 240-million gallons of

partially treated sewage into the ocean each day. The waiver allows the

district to meet lower standards than those laid out in the Clean Water

Act of 1972.

Officials from the sanitation district are moving to renew the waiver,

which has already been renewed twice since it was first granted in the

1980s.

The studies would be in addition to regular monitoring and testing of

the water offshore. The outfall pipe stretches 4 1/2 miles out to sea.

Monitoring work to compare local data with other areas along the

coastline has gone on since July 1998. That work is scheduled for August,

November, February and May.

The district will also continue to create models of the plume to

study, a process that began in July 2000.

Work to uncover the mysteries of the area’s crisscrossing currents

began in February of 1999 and is also set to continue, officials said.

According to scientists who took water samples during the summer of

2001 and analyzed them, there was no evidence that high levels of

bacteria from the plume were returning to the shore.

The district funded that study, which was released May 15.

Another group of scientists from UC Irvine and Scripps Oceanography

also conducted tests, using samples taken by the district, which they

said debunks the theory that warm water held the cold water and sewage

plume at bay.

City officials have long suspected the bacteria as a primary cause of

the nagging surf zone contamination problem. Councilwoman Pam Julien

Houchen said she doubted additional studies would be valuable.

Houchen and others have called on the district to step up its

treatment of the sewage. Those calls have fallen on deaf ears.

“Don’t do more studies,” Julien Houchen said of the latest studies.

“Treat the sewage.”

District board members are scheduled to decide later this month

whether to pursue another waiver renewal. The water board would initially

accept the application and make a recommendation to the Environmental

Protection Agency.

District leaders said they looked forward to the results of the new

studies.

“The big picture [of the studies] is to answer the question, where is

the plume at any given time,” said Robert Ghirelli, the district’s

director of technical services. “We don’t have enough information . . .

We’re trying to develop better tools to help advance our knowledge.”

* PAUL CLINTON is a reporter with Times Community News. He covers City

Hall and education. He may be reached at (714) 965-7173 or by e-mail ato7 paul.clinton@latimes.comf7 .