Fixing Our Aging Sewer System

by Councilman Scott Peters
November 2001

All San Diegans are aware of the chronic sewer spills that occur each year, causing pollution to reach area beaches, endangering public health and threatening our quality of life. This is partially caused by the neglect we've shown our sewer collection system over the past 3 decades. The 34-million gallon Adobe Falls Spill and the 1.5 million gallon Tecolote Spill, just this year, illustrated in graphic detail the immediate need for upgrades to our sewer collection system.

In December, Mayor Murphy asked me to co-chair his Clean Water Task Force, a collaboration of elected officials, environmental groups, builders and businesses, scientists, and regulators, seeking creative and effective solutions to our water quality problems. One of our missions is to reduce sewer spills, and especially spills to public waters, by 25% by 2004. This will help accomplish our larger goal, which is to reduce beach closures and postings by 50% by 2004. We have already made a lot of progress.

Remarkably, half of our sewer system has not been on a regular cleaning program, and there are sections of the system that have not been cleaned in 10 to 20 years! We have instituted a program to have the entire sewer system cleaned by the end of 2003, and then to put the system on a regular maintenance cycle. The City has also issued a contract to begin televising the interior of our sewer lines to identify the areas that have the highest priority for rehabilitation and replacement, so that we get there before big problems develop. The early pictures from the televising have pinpointed many of the problems, including weakened and broken pipes and extensive root intrusion.

The City is also concentrating on the 400 miles of sewer pipes that line the bottom of our urban canyons. These canyon pipelines are the most likely to threaten water quality. Since they are so difficult to get to, they don't receive routine maintenance. Spills from isolated canyon sewers are likely to go undetected for much longer than spills from street sewers. With the help of our Sewer-Canyon Citizens Task Force, the City is now buying equipment and creating procedures that will give us access to our lines for maintenance and replacement without ruining our canyon environments. We are also performing a manual assessment of all of our canyon manholes, and, last month, we began our Volunteer Canyon Watchers Program, that will enlist hikers and joggers to be additional eyes on the canyons where the risks of spills is greatest.

Now, however, we must confront the biggest problem. We have to replace our broken and rotting pipes.

Soon after this City Council took office, the City's Metropolitan Wastewater Department informed us of the conditions in our wastewater collection system. Although the City had spent over a billion dollars in the last decade to upgrade our treatment systems, which include our sewer outfalls, new reclamation facilities and the expansion of the Point Loma Treatment Plant, it paid almost no attention to the underground pipes that bring waste from our homes to the treatment facilities. An independent study concluded that the City is replacing our 3,000-mile sewer system every 100 years, while the average life span of those pipes is only 50 years. As a result, the study concluded that there were 800 to 1000 miles of pipes that had aged beyond their life span and are in danger of continuing to cause major spills like those that occurred at Adobe Falls and Tecolote Creek.

In October the Council voted 8-1 in favor of a rate increase to pay for an aggressive program of pipe replacement. It was a difficult step, but unavoidable. Its importance was illustrated by the wide range of interest groups that endorsed the increase, including the San Diego Taxpayers Association, the Building Industry Association, the Sierra Club, the San Diego Building Owners and Managers Association, and San Diego BayKeeper. Our new program will increase our pipeline replacement from 15 miles of sewer pipeline annually to 60 miles each year. In so doing, we can fix the most seriously deteriorated pipes and catch up on 30 years of deferred maintenance

One of the core missions of the City Council is to protect the health and welfare of our citizens and protect our quality of life. We will not solve this problem quickly or easily. We will continue to have spills, but I am confident that the work we do today will be effective in saving money in the long run while reducing this threat to public health in the near future. Our only alternative is dirtier beaches and a growing health threat. I am not willing to choose this alternative, and I hope you will support our actions to improve the quality of life for all San Diegans.