COMMENT: Party Poopers
DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT THE ORANGE COUNTY SANITATION DISTRICT is wantonly polluting the shoreline and endangering public health? And if you do, do you think the watchdogs at EPA are allowing the district to get away with it?
Ask yourself those questions as you follow the political stink over whether the district should continue to receive a Clean Water Act waiver, a waiver that holds it to an eased standard of treatment for the effluent it discharges 4 1/2 miles offshore. The waiver saves Orange County businesses and residents the cost of a new treatment facility, estimated at more than $250 million to build and $10 million a year to operate.
From the tone of many news articles, from the cries of environmental extremists and from the recent 63-10 vote in the Assembly to force Orange County to implement the higher level of treatment, you’d think we’re turning the Pacific into a giant toilet bowl. Not so.
It’s being argued that Denver and Phoenix don’t discharge wastewater into the ocean, so why should we? Well, duh, they can’t. And Orange County residents are being told their sewer bills are too low. Apparently, we should feel obliged to pay more for no good reason.
Some facts:
& #149; The wastewater OC releases into the ocean receives primary treatment, which means toxics and solids are removed. Because of the waiver, the wastewater does not have to undergo secondary treatment, which removes bacteria. So all of the fuss is over whether the wastewater discharged into the ocean should be, roughly speaking, 75% treated or 85% treated.
& #149; The levels of bacteria in the water off of Orange County’s coast have not changed appreciably (if anything, they’ve gone down a little) since 1985, when OC obtained the waiver.
& #149; OC is not alone. Three other California coastal sanitation districts, including beautiful San Diego, also operate under the waiver.
& #149; The discharges are monitored by the Cal EPA and the federal EPA. Cal EPA has rebuked the Assembly, saying there was no evidence the OC discharges were a problem and urging lawmakers to leave the matter to regulators.
& #149; A much-anticipated study found no evidence linking the wastewater discharges into the ocean with the 1999 beach pollution in Huntington Beach. More likely reasons for the pollution: Broken sewer lines, dirty storm water, leaky beach toilets and seagull droppings.
& #149; For OC to make the secondary treatment required without a waiver means finding a site for a new treatment plant (oh boy). The sanitation district has such a plan on the drawing board, but if the process started tomorrow, it would probably take about 10 years for the plant to start operation. Lots of time, lots of money, lots of neighborhood protests.
& #149; Opponents of the waiver enjoy equating the discharged wastewater to raw sewage. It’s not. It’s more like fertilizer. Sea life, far from being harmed by this plume, thrives on it.
Sadly, the Assembly bill to gut the waiver was blithely sponsored by OC’s Ken Maddox and supported by fellow local GOP lawmakers John Campbell and Tom Harman, as well as local Democrat Lou Correa. Bipartisanship is a cinch when Republicans behave like liberals, play to perceived public opinion,and pile on OC to boot. (Local GOP legislators Bill Campbell and Lynn Daucher cast principled dissenting votes.)
Only a comparably liberal state Senate and the calculating Gov. Gray Davis can stop the anti-waiver train now. Yet, given the Cal EPA’s recent stand, it is possible that the Senate or Davis might check the Assembly and preserve OC’s waste-treatment options.
Let me be clear: If it is shown we’re dealing with a health or environmental risk, let’s get to fixing the problem pronto. But the evidence to date suggests the sanitation district is benignly sparing the county’s taxpayers a sizeable expense.
Let’s not flush a good deal down the drain.
, Rick Reiff
