Credit Steven Bartholow.
A Dec. 23 failure of Padre Dam’s influent pump station led to the spillage of 1.2 million gallons of sewage along the shores of Ocean Beach. Dam officials are working to ensure future spills are minimized.
By Margie M. Palmer / Santee Patch / January 4, 2010
Padre Dam Municipal Water District is working to safeguard itself from a repeat of the Dec. 23 sewage spill which led to beach closures along Ocean Beach. Rainstorms which saturated Southern California four days before Christmas have been named the primary culprit.
Padre Dam Communications Coordinator Melissa McChesney said the storms, which led to an overspill of water from Sycamore Creek into their operations yard, is what ultimately led to the failure of their influent pump station (IPS).
“The Sycamore Creek bed overflowed into our yard and flooded some of our buildings over there, including the bottom two levels of our IPS, and because of that, the pump station, which pumps our wastewater up to the water recycling facility, shut down,” McChesney said. “When it went down, the wastewater had nowhere to go and it just turned around and went back the other way.”
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