Sewage Spills

Rush-hour traffic screeched to a virtual standstill Thursday in Laguna Beach after officials closed South Coast Highway because of a sewage spill that fouled two coves. "Traffic is gridlocked," said Sgt. Jason Kravetz, a spokesman for the Laguna Beach Police Department. "We've got everyone down there working on it." The leak occurred about 3:30 p.m.

Donna Martin put on her bathing suit Monday morning and drove her 17-year-old daughter and a neighbor's 4-year-old over to Mother's Beach in Long Beach, psyched to take a dip. A red and yellow warning sign killed the mood: "Beach Closed. Sewage Contaminated Water. Ocean Water May Cause Illness." Martin, 48, a Long Beach native, was disappointed -- but not surprised. "It seems like it's a common occurrence that they close this beach," she said.

A small area of Lower Newport Bay has been closed to swimmers and divers for at least three days because of a sewage spill, officials said Tuesday. About 100 feet of beach south of West Coast Highway near Bay Shore Drive was closed about 8 a.m. after 75 gallons of raw sewage overflowed into the harbor because of a blockage caused by overgrown roots in a city sewer line, said Monica Mazur, a supervising environmental health specialist for the Orange County Health Care Agency.

A 1-mile stretch of Will Rogers State Beach was closed Friday after 10,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the ocean through Santa Monica Mountain Creek, authorities said. The spill was centered near Pacific Coast Highway and Chautauqua Boulevard, said Eric Edwards, acting chief environmental health specialist for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. The sewage was believed to have originated from the nearby Riviera Country Club, Edwards said.

Los Angeles County public health officials failed to document more than 90% of raw sewage spills that have occurred since 2002, largely because city, county and state agencies did not report them, according to a study released Wednesday. Most of the 208 potentially health-threatening sewage spills between January 2002 and July 2006 were neither officially recorded nor cleaned up, according to the 24-page report by the Los Angeles County auditor-controller.

Southern Californians love their beaches. So to keep the beaches and ocean unfouled, government agencies have over the last decade passed strict pollution laws and spent millions of dollars trying to reduce sewage spills and urban runoff. But a county audit released this week determined that all of the regulations and disclosure requirements have created a communications breakdown that has left Los Angeles County health officials in the dark about numerous sewage spills.

Los Angeles County public health officials closed portions of three beaches this week after three unrelated sewage spills. The spills, all relatively minor, occurred Tuesday afternoon and resulted in partial closure of Will Rogers State Beach, Dockweiler State Beach and Venice Beach. If water testing shows bacterial levels to be normal, the beaches will be reopened this afternoon. The spills added to jitters regionwide about sewage contaminating beaches.

County health officials closed portions of Dockweiler State and Venice beaches after a raw sewage spill Wednesday afternoon. The closure runs one mile north and south of Ballona Creek's mouth, where the sewage reached the ocean, officials said. Will Rogers State Beach also remains closed because of high bacteria levels from a minor spill last week into a creek there. The beaches will be off limits until at least Friday afternoon, pending water quality tests, officials said.

Construction workers Tuesday plugged a hole in a main sewer pipe that had leaked millions of gallons of wastewater into an ecological reserve. The 10-inch hole sent more than 5 million gallons of raw sewage into the Buena Vista Lagoon, a freshwater lake between Carlsbad and Oceanside that is home to many fish and bird species.

A broken pipe spilled up to 2 million gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River north of New York City as workers scrambled to repair the damage. Westchester County health officials warned boaters, water skiers and divers to stay out of the river because of potential health problems presented by the sewage. The 48-inch underground pipe broke Friday afternoon, apparently ruptured by a tree that came loose during a landslide in Yonkers, officials said.