Environmental Press # 132

Subj: San Diego Sewage Shuffle
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 22:45:06 -0700
From: Doug Korthof <doug@seal-beach.org>
To: voiceforveterans@aol.com (via CleanOcean@StopTheWaiver.com)


"EPA sewage permit challenged by city"
By Terry Rodgers October 16, 2002
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20021016-9999_7m16appeal.html

Excerpts, my comments in CAPS:

"...federal officials last month renewed San Diego's...waiver...[BUT] San Diego yesterday filed a petition with [EPA] challenging language in the city's discharge permit..."The waiver allows San Diego to save money by continuing with primary treatment rather than the two-step or secondary treatment method required by the federal Clean Water Act..."

SECONDARY IS IN ADDITION TO PRIMARY, NOT AN ALTERNATIVE

"Secondary treatment removes slightly more microscopic solids and bacteria than the primary

 

  

method..."

IT REMOVES A LOT MORE, AND COSTS A LITTLE MORE

"...San Diego BayKeeper yesterday filed their...petition with the EPA challenging the [WAIVER]..."

"BayKeeper attorney Marco Gonzalez said...the treatment standards applied by the state and the EPA 'are not rooted in science and technology but rather politics and bad public policy'."

"...In exchange for the waiver, the city agreed to remove 80 percent of its sewage solids and increase removal of organic material that depletes oxygen in the ocean...."

ONLY SAN DIEGO DOES NOT WANT TO MEET THE 30-30 STANDARD AS EVERY OTHER DISCHARGER THEIR SIZE HAS AGREED TO DO.
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It is good that Baykeeper is on duty.

San Diego is the very picture of environmental ignorance: never-ending growth without regard to infrastructure. They painted themselves into the corner at Point Loma, by their own admission, counting on being allowed to dump primary forever. Like the Greeks, who burned their boats to ensure no retreat, Point Loma refused to purchase more land, and now can say that there is no space for expansion to properly treat the sewage.

How long will it be before they realize there is no more fresh water? Even if they succeed in buying from the Imperial Valley farmers, and/or floating big bags of water from "somewhere else", and/or desalinization plants on every corner, sooner or later they will find their sewage and crumbling infrastructure making life miserable.

Imagine, the inlet to the desal plant sucking up dilute sewage in the near shore ocean! Maybe some bright light will think of a 400 mile pipeline to steal Ocean water from some place less polluted!

Mayor Murphy was elected to stop the incessant beach closures, among other things. But once in office, he may have found that his improvident predecessors left him an insoluble problem -- not even any trees left to build those boats!

/Doug

Take a look at the terrible destruction of Native American sacred sites in Seal Beach at http://SealBeach.org

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