During Monday’s storm that dropped historic amounts of rainfall, the City of Santa Barbara’s wastewater treatment plant was at its max capacity and the stormwater system was overwhelmed to the point of manhole lids blowing off and creating geysers.

On an average day, 6 million gallons of wastewater flow through the city’s treatment plant, according to Cliff Maurer, the city’s Public Works director. On Monday, more than 34 million gallons of water flowed through the El Estero Water Resource Center.

He said the plant staff “did a miraculous job managing what was absolutely an unprecedented situation for them” as stormwater inundated the wastewater collection system and El Estero treatment plant.

“That is its absolutely max capacity, and that’s why the lower levels of the city we could only allow so much effluent into the plant or we’d lose the plant,” Maurer said. “With that kind of flow through the plant, it’s very difficult. Plus, all the sediment and everything else coming in to the plant to maintain that plant at the right balance, protecting the environment as much as we could and preserve the plant to work the next day or the next day.”

The storm caused manhole covers on the street to be blown off because of the sheer amount of pressure in the overloaded stormwater system, he said.

“Ask anybody who lives down in the Lower East Side … they saw geysers,” Maurer said.

Public Works crews responded to one incident on Canon Perdido Street where they thought there was a water main break because of a 3-foot-by-6-foot geyser.

“No, that was a storm sewer,” he said. “It was so pressurized it blew a manhole lid off, and instead of taking water out of that area, it was being discharged into that area. That was not an isolated incident. There were six to 10 of those in the area.

“Frankly, with that level of intensity, there’s nothing that can be done. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the reality. As far as city facilities, we fared very well.”

DON’T WALK WHERE YOU CAN’T SEE! Please be careful if walking during this storm! Be vigilant and look out for manhole covers that might have been removed & and downed power lines. @SBCity @SBCityOES @SBCityFirePIO pic.twitter.com/ZoKIcsd6oM

— Santa Barbara Police Department (@SB_Police) January 10, 2023

City Says Sewage Spill Reported During Storm Was Caused By People Connecting Home Storm Drains to Sewer System

The city is also investigating a 5,000-gallon sewage spill that occurred on Monday at Mission Creek near Vernon and Serena roads in Santa Barbara, near the upper De la Vina Street corridor.

City Water Resources Manager Joshua Haggmark said there is a sewage pipe that goes below Mission Creek and back up the other side. During the storm, sewage discharge went into Mission Creek, which was flowing at max capacity, and Santa Barbara County Public Health issued a warning for West Beach, where the creek lets out into the ocean.

“There’s a clear distinction between these two systems and never the two shall touch, so we work hard to keep these two systems separate,” Haggmark said, “because our wastewater receives significant treatment before it’s released into the ocean a mile and a half offshore.”

Haggmark said the spill was the result of people illegally connecting their home’s storm drains to the city sewer systems.

“Every property has a pipe that goes from the property to the street and connects to the city sewer system,” Haggmark said. “That property connects people’s sinks, showers, toilets, all that, and that is supposed to be dedicated for wastewater only. Unfortunately, there are a significant number of properties in town that have connected their storm drain water to that pipeline.”

Haggmark said that typically happens when a homeowner hires a contractor or landscaper to take care of a flooding issue in their backyards who will connect the runoff drainage into the sewage draining system.

“It seems harmless enough,” he said. “It’s technically an easy thing to do. The challenge is you get enough people doing that and it obviously causes significant issues in the wastewater system.”

According to Haggmark, residents were also opening sewage manhole covers to drain the rainwater from the street, which further contributed to the sewage spill because of excess water and debris falling into the sewage drain.

“Putting that water in the sewer system is not the right way to dispose of floodwater,” he said.

Haggmark emphasized that stormwater does not belong in the sewer system, and it is illegal for residents to connect their downspouts and landscaping drains to the sewer system.

“Stormwater does not belong in the sewer system, and unfortunately, during events like this, property owners have in some ways connected their downspouts into their sewer system,” Haggmark said. “It inundated and exceeded the capacity in the sewer system, which wasn’t designed for stormwater.

“It has lots of impacts downstream. We do our best to try and track down those illegal connections and make sure that those they know better than to dump their stormwater into the sewer system.”

Public Works has to clean out debris from the stormwater system that made its way into the sewage system, and dispose of the debris before the sewage was treated at the water treatment facility. 

“When we get spills like that, 99% of the water is storm water,” Haggmark said.

Haggmark said it is hard for the city to determine which properties are illegally connecting their storm drain systems to the city’s systems.

However, every 10 years, the city tests for the amount of storm runoff in the sewer systems, which will help narrow down the parts of the community in which neighborhoods and, ultimately, which properties are illegally contributing the most stormwater.

“Probably the homeowner has no idea,” Haggmark said. “They hired someone to take care of (stormwater), they made it go away. But they didn’t realize that they’re actually causing more harm than good.”