City to Cover Both Options: Sewage Treatment, Waiver

The San Diego City Council on Tuesday agreed to look into alternative ways of bringing the metropolitan area’s sewage-disposal system into line with federal law, while it works on its application for a waiver from those treatment standards.

The council did not specify which alternatives it was asking the city’s staff to explore. But Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who made the proposal, spoke of collaborating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on a mutually acceptable plan.

O’Connor made the motion after stating that it seemed unlikely that regulators would approve the city’s bid for a waiver from federal law. She said: “If I were a betting woman, I would tell you they are not going to grant our waiver.”

Nevertheless, she asked the staff to continue preparing the city’s waiver application “with the caveat that we’re not ready to go ahead with it.” Facing an impending deadline for the application, she said she wanted “to protect ourselves, from a legal standpoint.”

The city has until March 30 to decide whether to reapply for a waiver from the federal requirement that it upgrade its Point Loma sewage treatment plant. The EPA has tentatively denied the city’s application, citing effects on marine life and high bacteria levels in the Point Loma kelp bed.

Last week, the city staff recommended that the council reapply, using data it says could refute the EPA’s conclusions. Rather than upgrade the plant, the staff recommended that the city extend the ocean outfall pipe in order to discharge treated sewage farther from the kelp bed.

On Tuesday, O’Connor’s motion, which passed unanimously, effectively deferred a final decision on that.

Earlier, supporters of the waiver argued that upgrading the plant to so-called secondary levels of treatment would have little effect on ocean pollution. They contended that the estimated $500 million to $1 billion required could be better spent on other problems.

Meanwhile, critics of the city staff’s proposal accused the staff of underestimating environmental damage, overestimating the cost of upgrading the plant and ignoring the city’s need to consider saving scarce water supplies through waste water reclamation.

Also on Tuesday, Armand Campillo, director of the city Water Utilities Department, said the city would drop its separate request for exemption from state public-health standards on bacteria levels in kelp beds.