County scraps pipeline project at Talbert Regional Park
The Orange County Sanitation District has officially scrapped a proposal to install a large sewage pipeline through Talbert Regional Park in Costa Mesa, deciding the project is no longer in the best interest of the district or ratepayers.
District board members voted Wednesday to nix the project, which had been effectively tabled since May because of escalating costs and uncertainties about boring under the Santa Ana River.
The latest estimate pegged the cost of the project at $30 million, up from $15 million, district spokeswoman Jennifer Cabral said Friday.
The Sanitation District also determined that the pipeline, called the Southwest Costa Mesa Trunk, is no longer needed because the district’s current system has enough sewer capacity.
Additionally, Cabral said, the pipeline would have been problematic because it was expected to divert about 2 million gallons of wastewater per day, which would have reduced the amount of recycled water produced through the county’s groundwater replenishment system.
“With these new factors, this project is no longer necessary,” Cabral said.
County and local officials previously said the pipeline — a joint effort of the Orange County Sanitation District, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District and the city of Newport Beach — would ensure a more reliable system by moving untreated sewage using gravity, as opposed to pressure applied from pump stations.
“We still believe it’s a good project, but if they’re not going to support it, there’s really no reason for us to push ahead,” said Costa Mesa Sanitary District General Manager Scott Carroll. “We need their cooperation to bring that project to fruition.”
As proposed, the 4,800-foot-long pipeline would have started near the west end of West 19th Street and traveled through the southern portion of Talbert Regional Park — about 180 acres of largely open space owned by the county and located inside Costa Mesa city limits.
The pipeline then would have gone under the Santa Ana River before ending at a county wastewater treatment facility near the riverbed in Huntington Beach.
Kevin Nelson, a longtime project opponent who heads an advocacy group called the Nature Commission, applauded the county district’s decision.
“I commend the agency for doing the responsible thing — and it is responsible because Talbert is so very important as a piece of relatively untouched wildland,” Nelson said Friday. “That is the kind of place that we, as a society, need to leave exactly as it is.”
Local residents and environmentalists who protested the pipeline said it would be disruptive to local wildlife and require construction that would effectively close half the park for years.
Nelson, who grew up in Costa Mesa but now lives in San Clemente, said he’d like to see Talbert Park eventually combined with land eyed for the Banning Ranch project in Newport Beach to create a larger nature preserve or state park.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of canceling the pipeline project, he said, “is that Talbert has a little bit more chance to be left alone.”
County Sanitation District board members also voted Wednesday to pay the Costa Mesa Sanitary District $192,000 “to offset their costs to support the alignment and the environmental studies associated with this project,” Cabral said.
Board members in the Costa Mesa district directed Carroll earlier this year to seek some kind of reimbursement from the county, given how much money had already been spent in anticipation of the project.
That included 3,252 feet of 12-inch pipe and 116 feet of 15-inch pipe installed in 1991.
The cost of the project back then was $250,000. Adjusted for inflation, it would be about $666,000 today, according to Carroll.
“We just wanted to get some reimbursement to help make us whole,” Carroll said. “We are greatly appreciative that they approved the $192,000.”
Originally, the Costa Mesa district had planned to decommission five of its pump stations on the Westside that would no longer be needed if the Southwest Costa Mesa Trunk were built.
With that option now off the table, the agency will focus instead on refurbishing those stations. The $192,000 from the county district, Carroll said, will go toward covering some of the costs associated with that.
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
