Sanitation district gets grand jury reprimand

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- The Orange County Grand Jury has issued a seven-point

critique of the Orange County Sanitation District’s decision to withhold

crucial data about bacterial contamination near the city’s shoreline.

The grand jury report, announced Wednesday, said sanitation district

leaders have “not disclosed the existence of all publicly funded

studies.”

As the basis for its claims, the grand jury cited “The 20 Meter

Study,” a 1996 report paid for by the district from funds derived mostly

by rates passed on to users.

Though the district published raw data from a round of test data taken

during a two-month period in 1996 -- from Sept. 26 to Nov. 25 of that

year -- it did not provide any summary or analysis of it.

A written analysis of the report was not released until late March.

Mayor Tod Ridgeway, who requested a copy of the report during a public

meeting earlier this year, said the grand jury’s findings were

disconcerting.

“It’s clear the district was not forthcoming with this information,”

Ridgeway said. “I was uncomfortable with the answers when I was

questioning the staff about the 20 Meter report.”

District officials said they would take the grand jury’s findings to

heart.

“We have read the report and agree with all the recommendations

provided by the grand jury,” General Manager Blake Anderson said. “We

thank the grand jury for acknowledging that ‘OCSD recognizes the benefit

of communicating with the public’ . . . and we will use recommendations

to improve the way we disseminate research studies to the community.”

The study shows that a plume of waste water thought to have encroached

no closer than three miles from the shoreline was traveling along the

ocean floor toward the beach.

The contamination was as close as 1.5 miles out to sea and just 20

meters below the surface. Newport Beach officials and activists have long

suspected that the surf zone was contaminated.

Environmental activist Jack Skinner, who has pushed for the release of

the report, said the data could have led to a greater testing effort

after a summer-long beach closure in Huntington Beach in 1999.

“If we had known the contamination had come that close to shore, then

we would have pressed for more monitoring,” Skinner said. “I’m very much

in favor of the grand jury’s recommendations.”

Along with the seven criticisms of the sanitation district, the grand

jury also laid out seven remedies. Those include the publishing of all

raw data, posting study topics on the district’s Web site and releasing

all reports to the public in a timely manner.

Under the terms of a federal sewage waiver, the district releases 240

million gallons of partially treated waste per day from a pipe on the

ocean floor.

A host of Orange County cities, including Newport Beach, Huntington

Beach and Seal Beach, are pressing for an end to the waiver, which will

expire in 2003.

The district is required to protect the water in a recreational zone

leading three miles out under the terms of the waiver.

On May 15, the sanitation district’s board is scheduled to receive a

battery of results from tests that were performed last summer.

The district must consider whether to step up treatment of the waste

water from a basic, or primary, treatment to a more thorough, or

secondary, treatment.

* Paul Clinton covers the environment, John Wayne Airport and

politics. He may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail ato7

[email protected] .