Got a call yesterday from beaver friend JD about the report in the times saying a manhole had overflowed some 1800 gallons of raw sewage into the creek near Highland Holiday Hills park. The overflow was reported on wednesday but it’s possible the leak had been ongoing since monday.
District manager David Contreras said the agency learned at noon Wednesday that a manhole on Fig Tree Lane, east of Morello Avenue and north of Highway 4, was overflowing, and that raw sewage was running into the creek in Holiday Highlands Park. Initially, the agency estimated about 1,800 gallons of sewage had run into creek, but Contreras said that figure could rise because the manhole may have been overflowing since Monday.
For those of you following your watershed maps at home, this creek is an upper feeder that may go to Alhambra Creek, home of the beavers. It poured sewage for two days before it was stopped. We should all be curious why this wasn’t reported sooner, or how it was eventually reported at all. I wonder why the report says it “might have been leaking since Monday”. Why monday? Do you mean that’s when the initial phone call was retrieved from the message machine and sat in an untended pile until wednesday when the followup call made you think it was really worth investigating? Maybe its been leaking since saturday?I don’t want to hear a single complaint if someone eventually finds giardia in a water test at the beaver dam, when us humans put gallons of raw sewage into their creek. The outraged satirist in me loved this part of the article especially
A staff biologist at the scene did not see any dead fish, and live crawdads were visible in the creek, Contreras said.
The Crawdad and Deadfish Test? Really? Is that the subtle biological indicator you learned in water quality testing school? Aren’t crawdads like lobsters and shrimp which eat animal waste? Aren’t they often found in sewers? So would they really be a sensitive tool for identifying sewage problems?
This comes two days after the water district reported a “spill” with high coliform bacteria levels in 1.3 gallons released near the bridge. This was later declassified as a condition rather than a spill, and the results haven’t been repeated in subsequent testings.
He said the sanitary district performs a total coliform bacteria test three times per week. Under the district’s permit, the “most probable number” of total coliform bacteria in any single sample can’t exceed 10,000 per 100 milliliters of the sample water during the winter. Usually, that number is less than two, Contreras said. But the Tuesday sample, the district confirmed Thursday, exceeded 16,000 coliform bacteria per 100 milliliters. The preliminary results from the Wednesday test show the bacteria level fell back to below two, according to Contreras. “We’re currently investigating what caused this (high testing) number or if it was sampling error and we will provide that to the regional board in five days,” he added.
I can hear the false sympathy now. “The poor things. This just proves why beavers don’t belong in a city creek.” Maybe. Maybe its bad for HUMANS if sewage dumps into the water where children play and bacteria pours into the bay. Maybe filtering dams are the only defense we have left against spreading our germs all through the entire water system.
Maybe we humans should be more careful and beavers can remind us why.
