Sewage Spill in Richardson Bay

The hot topic of conversation in Sausalito this weekend wasn’t about which team would win ‘The Big Game’ but why it took nearly 20 hours for officials to notify the public that 2.7 million gallons of partially treated sewage from a Mill Valley treatment plant had spilled into Richardson Bay on Thursday. While it’s not unheard of for sewage spills to occur during times of heavy rain, one of this magnitude — 48 times larger than November’s Cosco Busan oil spill — seems worthy of being made public much earlier. Here’s the timeline:

• January 31, 5:30 p.m. — The spill begins. An experienced plant operator failed to leave enough pumps on to deal with the heavy rains, and the alarm system designed to alert the operators of a spill then failed.
• 8:30 p.m. — The spill is discovered by an employee monitoring the plant via computer.
• 11:16 p.m. — State officials are notified. Various state and local agencies communicate back and forth but no public statements or warnings are made.
• February 1, 2:00 p.m — The first public statement is released regarding the spill which then takes time to filter down to the public through various media. Meanwhile, divers are working in the contaminated waters and folks are taking advantage of the brief respite in the rain to head to the beaches.

Officials acknowledge there was a breakdown in communication and that the public should have been notified much sooner. They believe better protocol will be developed for future events. With contamination levels decreasing rapidly — possibly in no small part due to the continued rains — health officials are hopeful that beaches will be reopened soon.