Septic Tanks

On a September morning in the southwestern woods of Rhode Island, as the maples and oaks were changing into their autumn splendor, Greg Siner noticed a stench while walking by the septic tank of his rambling old Victorian home. Siner shoved aside the heavy cement lid to see if the tank needed to be pumped. "I looked in," he says, "and there was a skull staring up at me." Siner rushed into the house to tell Gardner Young, who bought the home with Siner a year ago. Young called police.

A City Council panel approved a new Septage Waste Hauler Disposal program that takes the pressure off a Valley waste dumping site previously approved as the only one in the city to take waste from septic tanks. The Budget and Finance Committee recommended Tuesday that there be four septage disposal sites.

The city has sued the Regional Water Quality Control Board over its decision to allow a septic tank at a proposed board-and-care facility in the college community. In the lawsuit, which was filed late last week, Claremont officials allege that the board violated state environmental law by reversing a previous decision to reject a septic tank as a solution to waste at the facility on West Baseline Road.

City officials are upset about a California Regional Water Quality Control Board decision to allow a septic tank to be installed at a proposed board and care home. The board had initially voted to require a treatment plant at the planned Claremont Board and Care facility on West Baseline Road. But after complaints from the owner that a plant could cost up to $100,000, the board voted 5 to 3 this week to allow a septic tank.

Ask Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich what's wrong with county health care and he's likely to tell you that the system provides service for too many illegal immigrants. Crime? Illegal immigrants. Schools? Ditto. In fact, Antonovich says he can trace a sizable number of county, state and federal government ills directly back to illegal immigration.

Rejecting the pleas of environmentalists and homeowners, a Los Angeles City Council panel on Monday recommended opening a septic waste dumping site in the Sepulveda Basin. The Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee voted unanimously to support the recommendations of sanitation officials to make the basin site one of four locations where the city will accept sewage from septic waste haulers.

Rancho Palos Verdes plans to eliminate septic tanks and add a sewer system in the Abalone Cove area to help prevent a landslide. City Manager Paul Bussey said plans to find a consultant who will acquire the easements for the project are underway and the city hopes to have the $2-million system built within a year. Bussey said the sewer system is part of a landslide prevention project.

The Los Angeles City Council has taken steps toward charging waste haulers for the septic-tank waste they dump into the city's sewer system. Last week, the City Council instructed the Bureau of Sanitation to develop a system of fees to charge waste haulers to pay for the cost of treating the waste, some of which comes from outside the city. On Feb.

A proposal to charge haulers for the septic-tank waste they dump into the city's sewer system is gaining momentum. On Monday, the City Council's Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee held a public hearing on a city controller proposal to charge haulers for the treatment of the waste they put into the system.

The city's top financial officer on Wednesday warned that Los Angeles' policy of accepting septic tank waste free of charge is costing sewer customers nearly $2 million a year. In a letter to Mayor Richard Riordan and the City Council, City Controller Rick Tuttle said the city is loosing $1.8 million a year by processing waste from septic tank users in the San Fernando Valley and surrounding cities.