Marin Co., Calif. citizens VERY angry over huge hidden sewage spill

[donsu]

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index.php?smp=&lang=eng


Residents and officials throughout Marin County were upset Friday that they were not notified for almost a day that 2.7 million gallons of treated and raw sewage had spilled into Richardson Bay.The stinking flow of effluent poured out of the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin plant in Mill Valley between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. Thursday and eventually flowed into the eastern arm of Richardson Bay, a sensitive tidal marsh with currents that can carry pollutants past Sausalito and Tiburon into San Francisco Bay.The amount of spilled sewage would cover a football field - including the end zones - 6.3 feet deep, enough to endanger wildlife, dogs and any people who entered the water.Signs were posted along Marin County shoreline and at San Francisco beaches - including Crissy Field, Baker Beach, China Beach and Aquatic Park - to discourage people from entering the water.State regulators were notified about the spill before midnight Thursday, but local officials, environmentalists and regular users of the bay were not told in some cases until 20 hours later."We're asking why there was such a delay," said Marin County sheriff's Lt. Doug Pittman, the spokesman for the county Office of Emergency Services, who said the county wasn't notified until around 9:30 a.m. Friday."Coming on the coattails of the Cosco Busan (oil spill) response, any delay is something we are concerned about," he said. "In the next few days, we will be trying to find out why there was such an untimely delay."The warning signs at local beaches were put up as a precaution, although not until Friday afternoon - long after many residents had finished their morning swim in the chilly bay. Water quality experts won't know until tests come back Saturday how much pollution is still swirling around.

"It's a significant problem," said Sejal Choksi, the program director for the environmental group Baykeeper. Her organization found out about the spill by reading about it on The Chronicle's Web site Friday afternoon. "The fact that you've got over 2 million gallons of sewage in the bay means that the aquatic environment has been totally slammed with bacteria, pathogens and industrial chemicals that it shouldn't be exposed to."

Stephen Danehy, the general manager of the sewerage agency, said the spill occurred because a worker failed to set up enough pumps to handle all the water in the Mill Valley plant.Typically, sewage plants pump effluent into holding tanks during heavy rains to prevent the system from being overwhelmed by water, but that apparently never occurred, causing a backup.A blend of treated and untreated sewage overflowed after all the plant workers had left. It poured into Arroyo Corte Madera del Presidio creek and flowed into Bothin Marsh, a tidal wetland of Richardson Bay.

An alert system notified an off-site, private dispatch service, which should have let an on-call operator know, Danehy said. But the operator didn't answer and instead of calling Danehy, as per procedure, the dispatcher left a message.A plant worker monitoring operations on his computer was the first to notice the problem around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Danehy said.The state Office of Emergency Services was notified of the incident at 11:16 p.m. Thursday and was told the spill occurred sometime between 5:50 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., said agency spokesman Kelly Huston, who expressed concern about the delay in reporting the incident."They're supposed to notify us as soon as they've discovered there was an incident," Huston said.But several county and local officials complained that they didn't learn about the spill from state officials until Friday afternoon.Tiburon Town Manager Margaret Curran said she was notified shortly before a 2 p.m. teleconference with state emergency officials."Clearly, earlier warning would have been useful and seems obvious," Curran said.Kerry Wilcox, the sanctuary manager for Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary, said he did not learn about the sewage spill until late Friday afternoon."It's hard to say what is supposed to happen, but I would say we were surprised that we didn't hear about it earlier," said Wilcox, whose organization monitors up to 6,000 migratory birds a day in Richardson Bay.

Many bay swimmers were furious.

"I believe it unconscionable that ... officials felt there was no need to report this spill for nearly 20 hours," said Gary Emich, a member of a San Francisco Bay swimming club. "I was in for 45 minutes this morning - hope I don't contract anything."Although state emergency officials said they told San Francisco of the spill late Thursday night, Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the city's Public Utilities Commission, said officials weren't told about it until late Friday morning."Within the hour, we were posting signs at beaches," he said. "I think, particularly, following the (November) oil spill, everyone is anxious about notification procedures, and this may indicate some improvements may be necessary."In November, the container ship Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge and spilled 53,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. The full extent of that spill wasn't announced until several hours later, causing a delay in the cleanup. Thousands of birds died in the spill, and beaches were covered in sticky blobs of oil for days.Choksi said sewage spills are quite common throughout the bay during the winter months. Baykeeper has sued under the Clean Water Act for sewage spills in Richmond and Vallejo and, she said, will sue the city of Burlingame in the next couple of weeks.The South San Francisco sewage treatment plant was fined by the Regional Water Quality Control Board recently for a spill of close to 1 million gallons, she said."If you want to talk about a toilet, these spills happen all the time during the rainy season," Choksi said. "It means you are essentially swimming in a toilet if you are in the bay."Marin County has been sued in the past, and Choksi said it is not the first spill at the southern Marin sewage plant, but it could be the largest.You can often have spills in the millions of gallons especially during a rain event," she said, "but I believe this is one of the largest ones that has happened all at once due to an operational error."The California Department of Public Health, Environmental Health and the Department of Fish and Game are monitoring the spill. Huston said the governor has also been made aware of the incident.So far there are no signs that wildlife has been impacted, said Steve Martarano, the spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game. He said a half-dozen Fish and Game officials were on scene at first light Friday looking for fish or birds in distress or dead animals. None was found.There was no smell, he said, adding that the sewage appears to have quickly dispersed after being diluted by the heavy rain in the area Thursday night.Danehy did not address the reporting delays, but he said whatever problems occurred will be fixed."Anytime a treatment facility doesn't do what it's supposed to do, that's not a good thing," Danehy said. "It's a serious thing as far as I'm concerned. We have to figure out what went wrong, why it went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again."Whatever went wrong, Dave Maloney of Piedmont was not worried. The Dolphin Club member and retired Oakland firefighter was fixing to take a swim near Fisherman's Wharf when he learned about the sewage spill Friday afternoon. He went in anyway."It looks clean," he said. "We've already had two tide shifts since last night. That cleans it out."The old-timers, he noted, swam in the bay every day before San Francisco and other communities even bothered to treat their sewage. "It cures a lot of sicknesses," he said of the 47-degree water. "I haven't had a cold in 25 years.")
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fired and jailed

[Peregrine Took]

1. I hope they get together and give 'em hell.