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 n Oct 30, attorneys for leading local environmental
organizations San Diego BayKeeper and the Surfrider Foundation
put Mayor Susan Golding, City Manager Michael Uberuaga, and the
entire City of San Diego on notice that they intend to sue it
in sixty days for hundreds of violations of the Clean Water Act
occurring over the past five years.
 Specifically,
the environmental groups are challenging the city's discharges
of more than 37 million gallons of raw sewage to San Diego Bay,
Point Loma, Ocean Beach, Mission Bay, Pacific Beach, La Jolla,
and Torrey Pines. In addition, the threatened lawsuit alleges
a failure by the city to develop a program to adequately deal
with the storm water and urban runoff alleged to be the primary
sources of coastal pollution along our coast. Attached to the
Notice Of Intent (NOI) to sue letter is a 52 page summary of
the city's illegal discharges, which, taken together, have caused
thousands of days of beach and bay closures spanning all of San
Diego's coastal communities.
The NOI states
that the illegal discharges have been caused by the intentional
conduct and neglect of the city over the past five years. In
particular, the letter notes the failure of the city to:
- Rebuild an antiquated sewer collections system;
- Maintain the existing collection system;
- Adequately monitor sewage flows in the system;
- Divert dry-weather flows of urban runoff
from known problem areas;
- Implement Best Management Practices to reduce
pollutants in urban runoff;
- Identify and control illegal sewage discharges
by third parties into the storm drain system.
Bruce
Reznik, Executive Director of San Diego BayKeeper, stated, "The
chronic pattern of sewage spills continues to affect every beach
community throughout the city. It's time for our elected officials
to be held accountable, not only for the environmental damage
and public health risks caused by these spills, but also for
all of the negative impacts to the economy that result from our
region's damaged reputation."
Marco Gonzalez,
Attorney for the environmental groups and Chairman of the San
Diego Surfrider Foundation, stated, "In the ongoing litigation
between the city and the federal Environmental Protection Agency,
the city is going to great lengths to show that our multitude
of beach closures and constant ocean pollution are not because
of sewage discharges from the Point Loma Ocean Outfall, but rather
from difficult to discern non-point source and urban runoff.
With this lawsuit, we will show that the city is responsible
for those problems as well."
Supporter
of the environmental groups, Donna Frye of Surfers Tired of Pollution
(S.T.O.P.) noted, "It's about time the city is made to take
action for its failure to maintain basic services for its citizens.
We have a right to clean water, and the elected officials must
accept responsibility for denying us this right. This lawsuit
will put an end to the city's arguments that every sewage spill
is merely an accident or act of nature."
The litigation team assembled by the environmental groups includes local offices of Rory Wicks and Marco Gonzalez, as well as San Francisco's Daniel Cooper of Lawyers for Clean Water. 
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