Sanitation district dumps controversial waiver

Paul Clinton

Orange County Sanitation District board members flushed away a

controversial sewage treatment process Wednesday evening.

The district’s 14-11 decision, met by resounding cheers in the

spill-over meeting room, followed months of deliberation and public

scrutiny.

Following animated discussions at the meeting, the 25-member board

narrowly approved an increased treatment of its wastewater that would

kill microscopic contaminants -- bacteria and viruses that include E.

coli and other harmful and harmless microorganisms.

Sanitation district general manager Blake Anderson said the

district could begin full secondary treatment by 2011.

Newport Beach City Councilman Gary Adams, representing Mayor Tod

Ridgeway, said it was time to use higher treatment as a way to

protect the county’s beaches.

Adams, reading a letter from Ridgeway, said he believes the plume

is returning to the shoreline. In Newport Beach, the bacteria has

been detected as close as a half-mile from the shore along an

offshore ridge known as Newport Canyon.

“The plume periodically reaches the head at Newport Canyon,” Adams

read. “Although the elevated bacteria counts don’t always reach

[statewide] standards, they are of concern.”

By agreeing to higher treatment, the board dropped its pursuit of

extending the controversial federal waiver that allowed the district

to skirt standards laid out in the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Sanitation district officials secured the waiver in 1986. It has

been renewed twice and expired this year. The sanitation district

dumps 243-million gallons of partially treated wastewater into the

ocean every day via an outfall pipe 4 1/2 miles out to sea.

The district was one of only a handful of sanitation agencies in

the nation allowed to use the waiver.

Within three months, the district could treat 65%, rather the

current 50%, of its sewage discharge to the higher level.

Over the past year, a wave of opposition to the waiver rose among

a band of vocal environmentalists, then spread to nine city councils,

county supervisors and a state assemblyman.

Newport Beach and Huntington Beach were among the cities to oppose

the waiver. The Costa Mesa Sanitary District also joined the

opposition.

Sanitary district member Jim Ferryman, also a county sanitation

district member and a Newport-Mesa Unified School District trustee,

threw his support behind higher treatment.

Using full secondary on the sewage discharge would probably result

in a $16 increase for the average homeowner per year, district

officials said. Right now, the average homeowner pays $87.50

annually.

The district would need to spend $423 million between now and 2020

to reach that level -- The district was one of only a handful of

sanitation agencies in the nation allowed to use the waiver, $271

million more than what the district would normally spend.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment and politics. He may be

reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at paul.clinton@latimes.com.