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Pendleton investigates possible sewage spill

OCEANSIDE, Calif. – A broken toilet in an aircraft hangar at Camp Pendleton led to the discovery that misdirected storm water and sewage pipes might have dumped 250,000 gallons of sewage into a nearby river, base officials said Thursday.

The base is investigating a “construction error” discovered after Marines on Tuesday requested repair of a smelly toilet in a restroom at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Air Station, officials said in a statement.

Base maintenance workers discovered that two lines — a sewage discharge pipe and a storm water drain line — “were improperly connected” to two bathrooms in the hangar, which was renovated four months ago, base officials said.

“It is uncertain how many gallons were released to the storm water versus the sewage pipe,” officials said. Base maintenance workers noticed that a blockage in the sewage pipe “sent the sewage flow into the storm drain line.”

The error allowed sewage to flow into a storm drain that carries runoff into the Santa Margarita River, which parallels the air station’s northern boundary. Sewage pipes carry wastewater to treatment plants for processing.

Crews on Thursday were cleaning the storm drains and repairing piping in the bathrooms, officials said.

“Air station personnel are closely monitoring this incident and are taking its potential impact on the environment seriously,” they added.

A civilian contractor in November completed a refurbishment of the hangar.

Lee Saunders, a spokesman for Naval Facilities Engineering Command, identified the contractor as Allright Diversified Services Inc. of Fresno, Calif. What caused the apparent mixup “has to be determined,” Saunders said.

The incident is similar to a sewage spill in November at a high-rise barracks building at San Diego Naval Base.

In that case, 14 million gallons of sewage flowed into a storm drain leading to the nearby Chollas Creek, which flows into San Diego Bay, possibly since Palmer Hall’s construction in 2004, Navy officials estimated. Sewage pipes were erroneously connected to a storm drain instead of a sewage lines that connect into the city’s sewer system, which processes the waste.

The company that built the barracks, Soltek Pacific of San Diego, reconnected the lines and cleaned the storm drain.