Healing Our World
Weekly Commentary
By Jackie Giuliano Ph.D.

No Cause for Celebration

Water flows from high in the mountains. Water runs deep in the Earth. Miraculously, water comes to us, and sustains all life. -- Thich Nhat Hanh

It was a party atmosphere last week at the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant in Los Angeles. The management and staff was celebrating the completion of a phase of their expansion that will result in partial treatment of all the nearly 400 million gallons of sewage and wastewater that flows through their plant each day. Until last week, half of that flow was sent into the ocean, untreated.

Sadly, the current $1 billion expansion continues to pollute our ocean and even worse, encourages the mentality of endless expansion that has become the motto of Los Angeles and the nation.

Like Hyperion's partial treatment of our wastewater, the "Los Angeles Times" only partially treated the subject in its story on December 8, 1998 entitled "Sewage Plant is finally helping to Heal the Bay." The article, which sounded like it came from a Hyperion press release, omits many issues. Believe me, there is no cause for celebration.

I have taken my university students on tours of the plant nearly a dozen times over the last five years. Our tour guides, who were usually plant engineers, and my subsequent research, has revealed a much more tragic picture than the partying would suggest.

Due to limited capacity, the plant was partially treating only one half of its nearly 400 million gallons of our city's wastewater each day. The remaining untreated half has been polluting Santa Monica Bay for years. The waste is piped into an underwater canyon five miles off shore. Plant officials will speak as if the waste is permanently out of reach, but this is far from the truth. Ocean currents bring it up regularly, resulting in beach closures and illnesses.

Los Angeles has a long history of ocean pollution. Between 1949 and 1979, the city dumped 1,000 pounds of DDT per day into the Bay. That poison, along with the rest of the waste we have been dumping since the 1930s, is still out there.

Ask any Southern California surfer about his or her chronic skin diseases and health problems.

On our planet with its interconnected ecosystems, there is no such thing as throwing something away.

The solid material that is present in the wastewater is removed before it goes to the ocean. Much of it is buried in landfills, but a significant proportion is used as fertilizer. You can even buy it at local department stores under the brand name Topgrow.

The partially treated water may have the solids removed, but it is loaded with heavy metals, released illegally into our wastewater system by the thousands of irresponsible businesses in the area. And those solids that are being used for fertilizer contain heavy metals and toxins as well.

Hyperion engineers have told me on more than one occasion about how, nearly once per month, an illegally dumped heavy metal load from some business will kill all the plant's sewage eating bacteria, shutting down the processing for two to three days. During that time, which is never announced on the evening news, untreated sewage goes into our bay while the plant regrows the bacteria colony.

We should not be celebrating any success for Hyperion. The partially treated water it sends out to the bay is unfit. Spending billions on Hyperion will not help Los Angeles' future, unless you want to have a sewage plant that stretches along the entire coastline.

Plant officials claim that the new upgrade will, when finished, allow them to handle nearly a billion gallons of wastewater per day. This, they claim, will support Los Angeles' waste until about 2010. After that, they will need another billion dollars.

Never is there any talk of water conservation. Los Angeles actually did well with conservation efforts during the droughts of the 1980s. In fact, the city did so well that the local Department of Water and Power raised everyone's rates because the department's income dropped.

We should be looking at the approach that the city of Arcata, California and soon Davis, California have taken, using marshes and wetlands to process waste naturally. In fact, the 1,000 acre Ballona Wetlands in the Los Angeles area, soon to be chewed up for 11,000 condos and six million cubic feet of commercial space - that will add 10 tons of air pollution and millions of gallons of additional sewage per day - could probably handle the waste.

Sadly, I doubt anyone will do the math.

Don't sing Hyperion's praise or that of any other traditional wastewater plant in the United States. Cry out because of the tragedy of their wasteful and harmful processes.

And please, don't swim in our oceans near cities without a very good health insurance plan.

RESOURCES

1. Visit many different water treatment plants on the web at http://www.wef.org/docs/wclinktp.html  

2. Learn about constructed wetlands like the one in Arcata, California from the Humbolt Water Resources site at http://www.humboldt1.com/~water/  

3. Learn more about alternative wastewater treatment systems at http://www.waterrecycling.com/alternat.htm  

4. Read about TOPGROW fertilizer at http://www.cityofla.org/SAN/services/topgro.htm  

5. The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to protecting the coastal environment. Check them out at http://www.surfrider.org/ 

6. California Water Quality Report Cards can be found at http://www.surfrider.org/wqjump.htm 

7. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Write them often about issues that matter to you. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html  

8. Learn about the issues. Seek out books on the subject. A good source for used (and new) books is Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212 where you will find a wonderful alternative to the massive chain bookstores taking over the market.

Visit the Healing Our World Archive and check out the many resource links in past articles.

[Jackie Giuliano, Ph.D., can be found in Venice, California, wondering if his dog Banshee, who now has bone cancer, was poisoned when she went into the ocean a few years ago. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix Southern California Campuses. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@deepteaching.com and visit his web site at http://www.deepteaching.com]

This Healing Our World article appear courtesy of Jackie Giuliano (copyright 1998)
and is printed with the permission of the Environment News Service.

Jackie Giuliano, Ph.D., can be found in Venice, California, wondering if his dog Banshee, who now has bone cancer, was poisoned when she went into the ocean a few years ago. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix Southern California Campuses. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@deepteaching.com and visit his web site at http://www.deepteaching.com