South County sewage plant wants $1.1 million fine invalidated
Operators of a South County sewage treatment plant have filed a petition asking a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge to review and invalidate a $1.1 million penalty levied against the facility for a massive sewage spill in 2010.
The fine was issued against the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District in October 2012, nearly two years after hundreds of thousands of gallons of untreated sewage mixed with floodwaters overflowed from the Oceano facility and backed up into homes.
The penalty was levied by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which found the wastewater treatment plant did not take adequate precautions to avoid problems during a storm that pounded the area and led to the spill.
The sanitation district board quickly voted to appeal the regional board’s decision to the State Water Resources Control Board. Nearly two years later, on Oct. 24, the state board dismissed the sanitation district’s petition for review — opening the door for the district to pursue the issue in court.
The sanitation district’s petition, filed Monday, claims that the regional board failed to support its findings with evidence, failed to consider key evidence in its determination of the estimated spill volume, refused to turn over the results of its investigation against the district, incorrectly concluded that the district’s defense did not apply, and failed to provide the district with a fair hearing.
“The board was in a difficult position because the information that was necessary to evaluate the claim against the district was being withheld from the district,” sanitation district board chair Matt Guerrero said Wednesday. “And so it would be difficult to explain to the ratepayers how you pay a fine without knowing the information that’s being used against you.”
The petition also asks that the water board be required to pay the district’s cost of its suit and attorney’s fees.
The district serves about 37,000 residents in Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach and Oceano.
Nearly four years have passed since the spill happened on Dec. 19, 2010. Heavy rains caused flooding in the treatment plant, which triggered an electrical short about 10:30 a.m. that shut down four influent pumps (where wastewater enters the treatment plant).
A discharge valve was also left closed and could not be opened fully, hampering efforts to move wastewater through the plant.
The district argued that three events — the storm, the electrical failure and the inadvertently closed valve — were unintentional and beyond the district's control.
But state water board prosecutors alleged the spill was caused by human effort — specifically, that the district could have prevented it if a project to install waterproof electrical wiring had been completed when originally proposed in 2004.
Sanitation district officials said the maintenance project would not have prevented the spill.
Estimates of the spill volume later ranged from about 400,000 gallons to 3 million gallons. Sanitation district officials put the spill at 417,000 gallons; the regional water board estimated that 674,400 gallons spilled.
State prosecutors said at the time that the spill was the largest public health exposure to raw sewage in private homes since the state board started collecting the information in January 2007.
They said raw sewage backed up in 11 Oceano homes in toilets or bathtubs, and residents reported becoming sick with the flu for days following the spill.
Sanitation district officials certified six sewer backups where untreated sewage was discharged inside private homes.
The case has been assigned to San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Barry LaBarbera. A case management conference has been set for Jan. 13.
This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 1:01 PM with the headline "South County sewage plant wants $1.1 million fine invalidated."