City of Morgan Hill officials explained to San Martin residents that a new sewage pipeline will be completed by 2019 to replace the older, smaller one that leaked during the January storms, according to one of the attendees at a March 7 town hall meeting.
San Martin resident Sharon Luna said city staff “admitted they blew it” when they could not stop more than 200,000 gallons of raw sewage from leaking into a nearby creek.
“They did a very good job explaining everything,” said Luna, who was disappointed that no representatives from Santa Clara County attended the same meeting. “The tone (of the meeting) was good as far as Morgan Hill saying that they blew it and have to look at things a little differently.”
The pipeline in question carries sewage from Morgan Hill south through San Martin to the treatment plant in Gilroy, which is operated by the South County Regional Wastewater Authority.
Luna and about 20 residents in attendance were told that a newer, larger pipeline, which will more than double the capacity of the line, will run along Monterey Road on its way to Gilroy, and be as non-invasive to homeowners as they can make it.
“They want to divert it so they don’t have to do easements on people’s properties,” Luna said. “A lot of (the information provided) was new to us.”
An estimated 204,000 gallons of raw sewage from Morgan Hill was discharged into the creek during the Jan. 8 and 9 storm, according to Environmental Scientist Jill North of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo. It occurred at 12690 Harding Ave., between Monterey Highway to the east and Santa Teresa Boulevard to the west, and Cox Avenue to the north and Highland Avenue to the south.
It is the third such spill from Morgan Hill’s system into Llagas Creek in San Martin in just over a year. The other was on Dec. 15, 2015 at 14240 Monterey Highway, when 12,000 gallons were discharged into the Llagas over a period of about two hours after an earlier attempt to repair an unrelated problem in the system suddenly failed.
More recently, city staff notified San Martin of another sewage spill Feb. 20. The location of the spill was along Harding Avenue between San Martin and Highland avenues, according to city staff.
“[I]n spite of the City of Morgan Hill’s Utilities crew’s best efforts we experienced another wastewater spill in San Martin Monday night,” wrote Maureen Tobin, the city’s communications manager, in a Feb. 22 email to San Martin residents. “When we get significant rain events, the infiltration and inflow from the rainwater makes its way into our sewer system and can over-tax the trunk line going to Gilroy.”
Tobin explained that “containment areas” were set up and “crews worked very hard to contain what they could and dispose of it properly.”
Attendees of the March 7 meeting held at 80 W. Highland were able to submit questions to the city staff and are expected to get them answered via email, according to Luna.
“I thought it was very positive,” Luna continued. “If they couldn’t answer our questions, they said they would get back us.”
In Tobin’s email to San Martin residents, she mentioned two courses of action: 1) a project to repair trouble areas where rainfall floods the sewer system; and 2) construction of the new sewer trunk line mentioned at the meeting.
“Once that second line is complete in 2018 or early 2019 we should have no more spills in the trunk system,” Tobin wrote.
