Getting to Bottom of Goleta’s Million-Gallon Sewage Spill

The cause of Santa Barbara County’s biggest offshore sewage spill in recent memory — north of one million gallons — remains the subject of an ongoing investigation, the county supervisors were told in an informational briefing this Tuesday morning. 

The supervisors were most interested in figuring out why it took six days for its Department of Public Health to get the news of a leak that was first detected late Friday, February 16. It wouldn’t be until Thursday, February 22, that the Department of Public Health issued its first press release warning the public off a 1.5-mile stretch of Goleta Beach. 

The answer, obliquely reported at the supervisors’ meeting, was the Goleta West Sanitary District officials first called and left a phone message on a Public Health telephone line on the morning of Saturday, February 17. That message would not be checked until the following Wednesday, February 21. 

In fact, Public Health officials would first hear of the spill from the state Office of Emergency Services. At that time, Cal OES recorded the size of the spill as just 1,000 gallons, still too small to trigger beach closures.

Goleta West’s general manager, Brian McCarthy, indicated the initial report was written up incorrectly and should have reported 30,000 gallons. Ultimately, the spill would dramatically morph in size, weighing in successively last Wednesday at 500,000 gallons and most recently — on Friday, February 23 — at 1,025,000 gallons. With rains forecast for that weekend, more sewage undoubtedly washed out from the Goleta Slough into the ocean. It remains unclear how much of what’s described as sewage is actual effluent and how much is water. As a beleaguered McCarthy noted, it’s all considered contaminated.

At one point, the supervisors were informed, the beach waters looked like “chocolate milk” from the spill and the sediment from the heavy rain runoff that soon followed. The Department of Public Health is testing the water by the slough — which ultimately feeds into Goleta Beach —and along this stretch of beach for elevated fecal coliform counts. To date, coliform levels exceed safe bathing standards, and 28 large red warning signs have been posted along the shore to keep surfers and swimmers out of the water. Exposure can lead to skin rashes and gastrointestinal distress. Although initial tests reflected elevated coliform counts to the east — closer to Hope Ranch — they did not reach the threshold where those beaches needed to be closed off to the public.

The county’s director of Environmental Health Services, Lars Seifert, said the bacteria count was expected to drop in the next week or two, absent the challenge of any more rain events. Seifert went on to say fecal bacteria would degrade naturally, dissipating through solar radiation and the saltwater environment.

County supervisors — as well as speakers with Santa Barbara Channelkeeper and Heal the Ocean — had more questions than they’d get answers. The spill had been found Saturday morning, Goleta West’s McCarthy said, after the pipe underwent a separate repair late into Friday night and they returned to inspect it. The hole was fixed within an hour and a half, and about 24,000 gallons were recovered. 

Bernard Friedman, who runs a muscle and oyster farm nearby, complained that the spill was hurting his business. “To me, this is like an oil spill. I would hope the county pursues it like an oil spill.”