Sewage

A sewage spill has prompted authorities to close a portion of Huntington Harbour in Orange County to swimming and diving until further notice. The restrictions, announced Saturday, apply to the area from the boat launch at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway to the boat docks at Blue Water Lane. Orange County also posted a couple of warnings about high bacteria levels. One affected area was the east end of Baby Beach in Dana Point Harbor. The other was in San Clemente, where Poche Creek discharges at Poche Beach.

Paul Clinton Come Wednesday, the Orange County Sanitation District's board faces a watershed decision. The 25-member board, which includes Mayor Debbie Cook, has picked that date to decide whether to pursue a controversial federal waiver and how to treat the partially treated sewage it releases into the ocean every day. "It's the ultimate decision," district spokeswoman Sonja Wassgren said. "This is the night they're going to be making a decision about the level of treatment."

Bryce Alderton An independent panel of top scientists will study the connection between the plume of sewage dumped into the ocean each day and high bacteria levels at Orange County beaches. The Orange County Sanitation District has recruited a panel of eight experts on oceanography, microbiology, bacterial and viral contamination and geophysics from universities across the country to review its findings from a $5.1 million study. The panel has been asked to examine the data collected by the sanitation district and other researchers during the summer 2001 ocean and shoreline testing, the $5.1 million study meant to determine if the 243-million gallons of sewage dumped 4 1/2 miles off shore each day makes its way back to the beaches.

Paul Clinton Disinfecting Orange County's sewage with chlorine may be new to residents here, but the process dates back to the 1850s and has been widely used by sanitary districts in other pockets of the country. Last week, the Orange County Sanitation District joined many of its peers in the waste treatment business by beginning a process in which the sewage is soaked with industrial-strength bleach. After a dechlorination chemical removes the bleach, the waste is released via an outfall pipe on the ocean floor 4 1/2 miles out to sea. The bleach, about three times more potent than the everyday household variety, kills off much of the bacteria present in the sewage, which is also treated with other methods.

Despite some significant opposition from inland cities in Orange County, last week's decision by the Orange County Sanitation District to provide stronger treatment of the waste that is pumped into waters off Huntington Beach is a victory for everyone living and playing in the county. Now, instead of 243 million gallons of partially treated sewage being sent miles off the shore, millions more gallons will get full treatment. And over the months and years, those millions will multiply until, by nearly all accounts, there will be much less chance of beach closures near where the district's outfall pipe empties 4 1/2 miles out to sea. It means less chance that a summer could be ruined, as 1999 was so disastrously here.

Michael Matter A sewage leak originating in Garden Grove closed two marinas in Huntington Harbour last week and over the holiday weekend. Both the Sunset Aquatic and Portofino Cove marinas in the Huntington Harbour water area were closed to swimmers last Thursday at 12:30 p.m. The spill was caused by a line puncture in Garden Grove's sewage collection system, said Monica Mazur spokeswoman for the County of Orange Health Care Agency, Environmental Health.

Paul Clinton A bill that would require the Orange County Sanitation District to step up the treatment of its sewage has sailed through the State Assembly. The legislation, known as Assembly Bill 1969, passed in the house of the Legislature on a 62-8 vote on Wednesday evening. It now moves to the Senate for approval. Author Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove) praised the overwhelming support for the legislation, which would also short-circuit the district's attempt to renew a federal waiver that would keep treatment levels status quo. The district dumps 240-million gallons of partially treated sewage into the ocean each day via an outfall pipe leading 4 1/2 miles out to sea. City officials suspect this plume of sewage is contributing to bacteria contamination in the surf zone.

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.

It was a bad week for our beaches. On Tuesday, the Orange County Health Care Agency closed the beach around Magnolia Street after an unknown quantity of sewage spilled from possible cracks, breaks or a separations in sewage lines from the nearby lifeguard headquarters and restrooms. The area will remain closed until the source of the contamination is removed and water-quality testing meets standards. Perhaps more far-reaching and more troubling, new research surfaced suggesting that the partially treated sewage that is pumped off Huntington is surfacing back near shore.

Michael Matter Huntington State Beach was closed Tuesday to swimming and surfing 1,000 feet north and 1,000 feet south of Magnolia Street due to a possible broken sewage line at a beach restroom. The Orange County Health Care Agency, Environmental Health, closed the beach after an unknown quantity of sewage spilled from possible cracks, breaks or a separations in sewage lines from the lifeguard headquarters and restroom No. 6. The area will remain closed until the source of the contamination is removed and the results of post-contamination water quality testing meets acceptable standards.

A sewage spill has prompted authorities to close a portion of Huntington Harbour in Orange County to swimming and diving until further notice. The restrictions, announced Saturday, apply to the area from the boat launch at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway to the boat docks at Blue Water Lane. Orange County also posted a couple of warnings about high bacteria levels. One affected area was the east end of Baby Beach in Dana Point Harbor. The other was in San Clemente, where Poche Creek discharges at Poche Beach.

Officials responded Monday morning to a sewage spill in a Huntington Beach residential neighborhood only to have the front ends of two of the crew's vehicles collapse into a sinkhole. Authorities have stopped a leak that spilled about 2,000 gallons of liquid sewage onto the street and down the storm drains, said Deputy Fire Marshal Jeff Lopez. The Utilities Division of the Public Works Department was called to the scene at 9 a.m. Monday after sewage began seeping out of a manhole in the street near Whitney Drive and Cascade Lane, Lopez said.

Environmental health officials have closed a number of areas along Orange County’s coastline, including a portion of Huntington State Beach, due to a sewage spill. The closure includes 500 feet north and south of Magnolia Street. The spill was caused by a line break at a private vessel pump-out station, according to a news release from the Orange County Health Care Agency. The size of the spill has not yet been determined, officials said. Other beach closures include areas of Newport Harbor, all of Dana Point Harbor, Capistrano Beach, Capistrano Bay District and parts of San Clemente to the south.

Last weekend was a painful ? although thankfully not harmful ? reminder of just how quickly our beautiful beaches can be filled with yellow warnings signs that read: "Keep out." For two days, the water from Beach Boulevard to the Newport Pier was closed while the Orange County Sanitation District repaired an offshore sewage pipe. The work meant that sewage had to be diverted to a pipe that is much closer to shore, and when the work took longer than expected, the Orange County Health Care Agency closed the water as a precautionary move.

The Salton Sea ? located in the Imperial Valley south of Indio ? sounds lovely. This 35-mile long inland lake, the largest body of water in California, sparkles in a desert valley bordered by the colorful Chocolate Mountains. Birds abound on the water and in the agricultural fields and feedlots that surround it. Some species are found nowhere else in Southern California. That's why Vic goes there four times every year to lead birding trips. I usually stay home. If you've ever been there, you know why. For one thing, the Salton Sea stinks.

A UC Riverside report has discovered a high occurrence of sexual deformities in fish living near sewage ocean outfall lines. That could raise concerns in Huntington Beach, where the Orange County Sanitation District releases treated sewage effluent from a pipeline several miles offshore. Experts are calling for more testing to determine whether treated sewage contains hormone-altering compounds that deform the sex organs of fish. The report, one of three released Monday at a national conference on ocean health, was the first to look at the effects of sewage emissions in the ocean.

The numbers are eye-popping. Pollution in the water along Huntington and Newport beaches costs people as much as $3.3 million in medical treatments each year -- anywhere from $37 to $77 per illness. That is an expensive dip in the ocean. Right? Well, maybe not. As much as the numbers--which come from a study released this month by a group led by a UC Irvine doctoral student -- seem to be yet more fodder in the battle to increase water-quality standards, they are, sadly, not nearly as shocking as they appear.

Alicia Robinson Orange County Sanitation District officials vastly underestimated the size of a Labor Day weekend sewage spill, which released about 1.6-million gallons of treated wastewater rather than the original estimate of 13,000 gallons, officials said Thursday. Beaches from 52nd Street in Newport Beach to Magnolia Street in Huntington Beach were closed Sept. 4 after a power failure caused the spill from a Huntington Beach pump station. The spill is being investigated by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, a normal follow-up procedure that could result in a penalty for whomever caused the spill.

The president of Surf City's tourism bureau is asking the Orange County Sanitation District to help clear up Huntington Beach's image after a Memorial Day sewage spill that closed several city beaches. Conference and Visitors Bureau President Doug Traub met with members of the sanitation district's board of directors steering committee on Wednesday to discuss a proposal for the district to launch a $350,000 marketing campaign to clear up concerns about the water quality of area beaches.

Hordes of people flocking to Huntington Beach last weekend to escape the record-high Labor Day heat were kept out of the water by a sewage spill that contaminated two-and-a-half miles of coastline. The spill was likely caused by fire-fighting helicopters, battling a wild land blaze in the Talbert Nature Reserve on the edge of Costa Mesa. Officials believe that one of the helicopters might have dumped water on a power line, which eventually led to sewage being released into the Santa Ana River mouth instead of a release valve four miles offshore.