Seasonal flooding is nothing new in Oceano. This past December’s record-breaking rainfall, however, caused some serious damage.
On top of the severe storms and flooding, the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District’s treatment plant was overwhelmed, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons—maybe as much as a million gallons—of sewage into the surrounding area.
San Luis Obispo County was hammered with rain from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22, when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for the county, along with five others. A recent assessment by county officials showed that the storms caused more than $2 million in damage.
Water began filling the lagoon near the Oceano County Airport about two weeks before the big storm, prompting a visit from SLO County Public Works crews to check a set of flap gates that automatically open and close to drain water into the ocean.
In anticipation of the storm, the crews went again to the gates two days before the downpour to clear sediment. Everything, it seemed, was working fine. And according to county officials, the floodgates operated perfectly.
“I know that there are people out in Oceano that are asserting that the flap gates malfunctioned,” Public Works Director Paavo Ogren said. “But we’re not seeing it.”
High tides the morning of the storm—estimated at about five to eight feet—also prevented the flap gates from allowing water to drain. Water continued to back up, flooding the neighborhood until the tides subsided.
The floods poured into the pump room at the nearby sanitation district treatment facility, causing all four of its pumps to cut off simultaneously. Water leaked into electrical boxes, trickled down the conduits, and shorted out one motor pump. After that pump died, the entire system shut off.
Plant workers brought in a backup diesel pump and another pump from the city of Pismo Beach to drain that water, but it took them more than two hours to stop the flooding.
District officials are still determining the severity of the spill. The initial report was one million gallons, which district officials soon downscaled to about 110,000. However, according to John Wallace, district engineer and administrator of the South San Luis Obispo County Sanitation District, the final amount will probably land between 300,000 and 400,000 gallons.
One neighborhood resident said the spill caused raw sewage to seep through the seam between his toilet and the floor, as well as bubble up through his bathtub drain. He estimates the damage to his home at between $9,000 and $25,000.
The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is currently looking into what went wrong, how to fix it, and whether the district violated its sewage management plan.
According to Paul Deis, manager of emergency services for the local arm of the American Red Cross, 29 people registered at the local emergency shelter when it opened. The Red Cross had to put two special-needs families in hotels, and during a recent interview Deis said other families were still staying in hotels after the shelter closed.
This article appears in Jan 6-13, 2011.