A day after this week’s storm pushed a new flow of sewage into Dominguez Channel – prompting beach closures in Long Beach and San Pedro – the state announced a deal with the Los Angeles County Sanitation District over a massive 8.5 million-gallon spill that hit the same area in December 2021.
The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ Joint Outfall Collection System will pay $6 million to help improve water treatment at Calas Park, a 9-acre recreational area in Carson that was linked to some of 14 spills that hit the region from 2018 through 2021, according to a deal announced Tuesday, Feb. 6, by the California Water Resources Board.
The agreement settles negotiations between the Sanitation District and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which sought damages related to the spills.
The biggest of those was an 8.5 million-gallon flow that shut beaches from Orange County through Rancho Palos Verdes over New Year’s weekend in late 2021. That spill started with the collapse of a 48-inch pipe near Calas Park, which pushed sewage out of a manhole on 212th Street in Carson for nearly 24 hours. The raw sewage went through a neighborhood and into Dominguez Channel, a 15-mile water collection stream and estuary that runs from Hawthorne to Los Angeles Harbor.
It’s unclear if the planned improvements for water treatment at Calas Park would have averted the new problem, or if Calas Park is connected to the spill.
On Monday, Feb. 5, county health officials were told that wastewater again was flowing from the channel into the ocean. Though that flow has been stopped, high bacteria counts in the ocean have prompted health officials to tell swimmers and surfers to stay out of the water off Long Beach and San Pedro.
The size of this week’s spill is estimated to be 8 million gallons, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Tuesday. The cause of the spill remains under investigation.
The state described Calas Park as a popular recreational area that has “historically been overburdened by the impacts of pollution.”
Money from the Sanitation District is expected to be used to create a system to capture and treat storm and groundwater, using underground infiltration and rain gardens, among other things. The goal is to help the community by reducing the amount of contaminants in surface waters. The project also will include a public awareness campaign and education about urban runoff.
In reference to the spills from 2021, and the settlement announced Tuesday, Norma Camacho, chair of the Los Angeles Water Board, said in a prepared statement:
“These are serious incidents that threatened water quality in multiple communities, especially in Carson. … The board appreciates the fact that the districts are planning infrastructure upgrades, acted quickly to clean up the December 2021 spill and will be funding a project to improve water quality in the disadvantaged community where the worst spill occurred.”
This article has been updated with a new estimate on this week’s spill by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
