Sanitation Bureau to Face Audit After Sewage Spill
VAN NUYS — State regulators ordered an audit of the Los Angeles Sanitation Bureau operations on Tuesday in response to a June 17 accident at a Van Nuys treatment plant that caused 3 million gallons of sewage to spill into a park.
Investigators for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board concluded that poor contingency planning and communications contributed to the sewage spill.
“The conclusion we reached is the spill was avoidable and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Wendy Phillips, chief of enforcement for the state agency.
City officials were testing an emergency generator for the Year 2000 bug when a computer glitch mistakenly closed the gate on a large sewage pipe at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.
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