Oceanside facing possible $10 million fine for December sewage spill
Ray Huard
North County Times
05/03/2011
A December sewage spill along Buena Vista Creek in Oceanside was far worse than officials first feared, turning out to be what they said was the worst such spill in recent memory and leaving the city vulnerable to a substantial fine ---- as much as $10 million.
Instead of the 180,000 gallons of raw sewage Oceanside Water Utilities Department officials initially estimated, they now say the spill dumped up to 5.4 million gallons of untreated sewage into the environmentally sensitive creek.
The creek meanders from just east of Vista's Brengle Terrace Park to the Buena Vista Lagoon.
A state environmental agency, the San Diego Regional Water Control Board, is investigating the spill to determine how much harm it caused and whether the city is at fault.
The environmental scientist heading the board's investigation, Christopher Means, said it will be at least two months before its review is completed and the board staff decides whether to recommend that the city be fined.
By law, the maximum fine the board can levy is $2 for every gallon of sewage spilled; but Means said he couldn't recall an instance when such a high fine was imposed.
Water Utilities Department Director Cari Dale said it would be counterproductive for the water control board to fine the city for the spill, because the money would be better spent replacing worn pipelines such as the one that broke to prevent more spills.
Luckily, the heavy December rains and flooding that officials blamed for the pipe break also prevented the spill from turning into an environmental disaster, according to the city and an environmentalist who monitored the spill and its aftermath.
"If this was a dry-weather situation, it would have been much worse," said Mark Anderson, operations manager with the Water Utilities Department.
Environmentalist Diane Nygaard said because of the rain, "the pollutants got immediately diluted."
"If this had been stagnant, it would have been horrific," she said.
Dale said the initial estimate on the size of the spill was so much smaller than the final count because no one knows when the pipe broke, how long untreated sewage was flowing into the creek and how much there was.
The pipe that broke has been exposed, hanging over the creek, for more than a decade, Nygaard said.
Dale said the city was aware of the problem and had plans in place to replace the pipeline, but kept running into snags getting the required permits from various state agencies.
In December, the creek was so swollen from several days of steady rain that the pipe was submerged, Dale said.
"We couldn't see the pipe to know if it was broken," Dale said.
When the water receded, workers detected the break. The sewage that was carried in the broken line was diverted into an adjacent sewer line owned by the city of Vista and pumped to the Encina Water Authority plant in Carlsbad for treatment.
Even now, no one knows for sure when the pipe gave way, but Anderson said the best guess is that it happened around Dec. 22; it wasn't discovered until Dec. 28.
Since the spill, about 500 feet of pipeline was replaced at a cost of $245,000, with the new line moved so it would no longer be in the creek itself.
