This loophole can erase pollution from EPA records
By Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin and Emily Zentner, with graphics by Andrew Witherspoon
Published October 16, 2023 3:01 AM
Dangerous smoke generated by the Camp Fire is among the events excluded from pollution records under the loophole.
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Topline:
A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.
What is this loophole? Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.
Why it matters: In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.
A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.
Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — on records used by the EPA for regulatory decisions, a new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian reveals.
In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.
"Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret" is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for the Guardian.
LAist is a member of The California Newsroom.
Where the EPA — which monitors air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis,“we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.
The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.
Matt Cowdrey, Mark Paiz and Kyle Ortega get ready to paddle out and surf Ocean Beach in San Francisco under an orange-red sky caused by wildfires on Sep. 9, 2020.
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“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.
For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the midwest and eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.
We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and analyzed hard-to-find public data to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.
We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:
Local regulators in 21 states filed requests with the agency to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.
In total, local regulators made note of almost700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust the data on 139 of them.
The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.
In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.
Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.
Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.
“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”
“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”
In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.
The 49 Bridge over the south Yuba River in Nevada county, California, is a popular area for hikers and advanced river activities. A legal loophole has allowed regulators to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, including Nevada county.
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“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”
The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.
More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork
In the US, clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control”. But in 2005, the Republican senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.
At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of south-western communities where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.
Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged. In 2020, 65 were.
“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the western U.S., but nationwide.
The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2023.
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No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the midwest and north-east place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.
We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.
When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.
“It is a lot of time,” saidJohn Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.
One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.
A smokier future
The recent experience of California’s Nevada County may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.
Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, in her office in Grass Valley, California, on Oct. 4, 2023. Wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, she says.
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Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the northern Sierra air quality management district. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.
During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.
Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.
Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”
After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.
Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon.
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“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic.The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said: “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”
Officials at the California air resources board (CARB) stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.
“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”
When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.
Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.
It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.
Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health Clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley, California. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley.
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‘We are all inheriting this’
In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.
Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then three and seven years old.
In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.
Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.
Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.
“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”
This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.
Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023.
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He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.
Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.
“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”
Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe
.”
In Southern California
Why SoCal is largely absent from this data
In the early years after the exceptional events rule was added to law, the South Coast Air Quality Management District applied to remove some events from the record, including related to wildfires, winds, and fireworks.
But since 2016, the EPA has guided local regulators to apply for exceptional events only when it really matters, like when excluding that data could help a region meet federal air quality goals.
In Southern California — which consistently ranks at or near the top of U.S. metropolitan regions for worst air quality — that just hasn’t happened. Ships, aircraft, and other heavy-duty sources like trucks contribute heavily to ozone and soot pollution, not to mention traffic, local construction, and development. Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties are so far out of attainment for these pollutants that exceptional events wouldn’t help here the way it does in other places.
Nevertheless, the EPA has asked the South Coast Air Quality Management District to write up plans to mitigate the effects of wildfire and fireworks exceptional events; those plans are due next year.
A note on high winds
Airborne dust is becoming a bigger problem in Southern California, partly because of development and partly because of weather conditions.
Data obtained from the EPA show that the use of the exceptional events rule every year since 2016 has helped Imperial County meet its air quality goals.
But other areas in Southern California where coarse airborne particulates (called PM10) are also a problem continue to miss goals — specifically, the Coachella Valley and the southeast desert of San Bernardino.
A man casts his ballot during early voting in Waukesha, Wis., on March 18.
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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
Why it matters: It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
Why now: The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. They analyzed the 20,930 names that the department demanded that California election officials treat as possible illegal voters by separating their ballots during the vote count on Election Day.
Multiple judges have rejected the demand as unconstitutional and a threat to democracy, and local and state officials have said the list appears riddled with errors.
Court filing outlines problems with government list
The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
The research found that 8,880 of the names, representing 42% of the entire list, do not correspond to anyone in California’s current voter file. It also found at least 22 are U.S. citizens, and many more may correspond to those of confirmed citizens.
“The expert analysis further makes clear that the mandated voter list endangers a significant number of eligible California voters,” said the filing, which was cosigned by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor and an adviser to the UCLA Voting Rights Project. null
The Trump administration had objected to sharing the list, calling it a “fishing expedition” and noting that it included sensitive information. On Saturday, the federal prosecutor who spearheaded the Trump case in California called the analysis “bogus.”
“This is a bogus report by the activist illegal immigrant rights group CHIRLA,” Bill Essayli, who runs the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, posted on X.
Also on Saturday, President Donald Trump bemoaned the legal rulings against his effort to force California to separate votes from the individuals his administration labels suspected noncitizens, even though one came from a judge he himself nominated.
In a social media post, Trump claimed his Justice Department found “20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions,” of fraudulent votes, “and the Court has just ruled against it. Why would they reject fixing Election Fraud?”
The Trump administration has also urged Washington state to remove what it says were 400 possible noncitizens on its rolls, though state election officials there say that list is also unreliable and includes one voter who cast ballots in the 1990s.
The Justice Department has warned California election officials they could face criminal liability if they let noncitizens vote and issued subpoenas to election officials there.
Election officials say they have no time to investigate
Election officials have complained that the Trump administration has confronted them with lists of possible illegal voters at the last minute before Election Day, with no time to conduct the painstaking investigation required by law before removing someone from the rolls.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed to stop the administration from continuing to threaten local election officials.
On Friday, a federal judge in California ordered the Justice Department to stop sending demands to state officials, a decision the Trump administration appealed Saturday. Several counties in the state had run quick checks of the Trump list and found numerous errors.
Saturday’s broader analysis was possible because a federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to share the list with the plaintiffs in the case.
CHIRLA and the UCLA project sued the Homeland Security Department in early October to prevent it from using federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls. The lawsuit cited examples in other states where the federal government’s data has been proven to mistakenly include thousands of citizens.
Case argues that government’s methods pose risk to voting
The case argued that the data-matching methods risk disenfranchising or deterring citizens from voting. On top of that, plaintiffs argued, the lists could disproportionately target naturalized citizens who are legally entitled to vote.
Applying the government’s methodology, the UCLA researchers found that nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens in the state were “highly likely” to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible.
The researchers noted that the administration apparently removed the voter identification number from the names, making it harder for election officials to determine whether the flagged individuals were already on their rolls or were duplicates in the Justice Department list. They described the voter ID number as the most crucial data point.
The Justice Department argues that there is just as much to lose if the ballots aren’t separated.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,” Kiersten V. Pels, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an email. “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.”
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published November 1, 2026 5:00 AM
Jordan Delgado picked Lady Gaga's 'You and I' as her debut song with the L.A. Karaoke league.
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Josie Huang
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Topline:
The LA Karaoke league turns singing into a team sport, where costumes, props and creativity matter more than hitting the right notes. For performers craving a creative outlet when auditions are harder to come by, the league offers a community to cheer them on.
The backstory: The L.A. league is part of United Karaoke, a national network of chapters that share a competition format, voting app and pledge to always keep the vibe friendly.
What's next: Teams compete for a spot in the finals. The public is welcome to watch and vote for their favorite performances.
For many of us, karaoke is a chance to sing our favorite shower song in public.
But at a North Hollywood bar every Wednesday night, it’s a team sport. And competitors in the L.A. Karaoke league are more serious about putting on an over-the-top production than hitting all the right notes.
At a social in late September, league manager Michelle Goff kicked off a new season of weekly themed showdowns, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
Brittany Gates, the CEO of United Karaoke, who was visiting from D.C., did her rendition of 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' by Deniece Williams.
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"You are going to see numbers that people came up with in their crazy dreams maybe three years ago, and it's going to be amazing,” Goff told performers at the social. “And then they’re never going to be done again.”
Michelle Goff unveils the different themed weeks, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
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Performances range from solos to group numbers, and the crowd votes for its favorites. Props and costumes are highly encouraged.
Here, dark wizards from Harry Potter duet to Taylor Swift. A singer tosses flowers to the crowd while belting Seal's “Kiss From a Rose.” Once, Goff danced around as an erupting Mount Vesuvius as her teammates sang Bastille's "Pompeii."
Like intramural sports but with microphones, teams compete over six weeks, followed by two weeks of playoffs, then the finals.
It all happens at the Good Nite bar, on a darkened stretch of Burbank Boulevard. Inside, there’s an inviting purple glow and warm conversation that can be hard to come by in a city as big as L.A.
“You know, the city, exciting as it is, still has so many strangers,” said Carlos Mulia.
A newcomer to the league, the chef-turned-actor already feels like he belongs.
Want to join the L.A. Karaoke league?
Where: The Good Nite, 10721 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.
When: Wednesday nights during the season.
How: Check the chapter’s website or @WeSingLA on Instagram for season announcements. Fall season registration is closed. The next season will start in late January or early February.
Cost: Registration costs $65 to $80, depending on when you sign up and whether you use a discount code.
Can I go watch: Yes! League nights are open to the public, with no cover charge, and anyone can vote for their favorite performances.
“Sometimes you can go to a karaoke bar and everyone’s talking and no one’s paying attention to you — that can be a downer,” he said. “But here, everyone’s contributing, everyone’s cheering for each other.”
For Mulia, the league also offers a creative outlet during Hollywood’s production slowdown, when he says opportunities to perform are scarce.
Actor Carlos Mulia said competitive karaoke gives him a creative outlet and a place to find community in a big city.
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“There’s not that many auditions," he said. "They’re far and few between, and it can really affect your psyche. So this allows you to just let it all out.”
The L.A. league started in Santa Monica in 2014 before moving among venues around the region and finding its current home at the Good Nite in 2021.
It’s part of United Karaoke, a loose national network with chapters in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago. The local leagues share a competition format, voting app and a pledge to keep the vibe welcoming.
In the league, friendships spark right away. Mulia hit it off with another actor, Jordan Delgado, who teaches children art at a studio.
They quickly figured out they’re both half-Filipino and grew up with karaoke, a fixture of Filipino social life.
“It is in our blood to do karaoke,” Delgado said. “So yeah, I’m honoring my ancestors in a way by being here tonight.”
Anybody is welcome on karaoke competition nights and invited to vote for their favorite performances.
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Delgado loves to perform but says the karaoke league promises more than that.
“It’s something to look forward to in the downtime of the part-time jobs,” Delgado said. “A reason to regularly meet up with people, where we could just be silly, without any judgment.”
For her league debut, Delgado is going with a tried and true crowd-pleaser.
“My go-to song that my friends and family have heard me sing a billion times is ‘You and I’ by Lady Gaga," Delgado said. "It really gets the crowd going.”
When it’s her turn, Delgado bounds onto the tiny stage up front with a big confident smile that matches a powerful voice.
“We got a whole lot of money, but still pay rent,” Delgado sings, striding across the tiny stage to whoops and cheers.
Several weeks after her league debut, Delgado would go on to win best performer during Graveyard Week, when the league revives songs so overdone they’re normally off-limits.
Her winning number? “Shallow,” with Delgado singing both the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper parts.
And she brought the theatrical flair. Dressed as Gaga on one side of her body and Cooper on the other, she was her own duet partner.
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By Jeremiah Dobruck | Long Beach Post, Dañiel Andres Martinez
Published October 31, 2026 1:34 PM
A sign a Rosies Dog Beach in Long Beach warn visitors of the contaminated water. Photographed at Rosie's Dog Beach on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022 in Long Beach, CA.
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Myung J. Chun
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday, after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
What happened: The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s Health Department.
The latest update: City crews tried to catch as much sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
Joy Contreras, a public information officer with Long Beach Utilities, told LAist that emergency repairs to the sewer main were completed Saturday night.
"The Utilities Department will investigate the cause of the force main break, as a break of this magnitude is extremely rare," Contreras said Sunday.
Water quality testing, Contreras said, will resume on Monday. The Long Beach Health Department, she said, will determine when swimming areas will reopen once samples meet State water quality standards.
What happened
The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. on Friday near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s health department.
“The spill was associated with a force main break, a pressurized pipe to convey wastewater,” according to the statement. There was no word on what caused the break.
Long Beach Utilities stopped the spill by rerouting sewage to bypass the line.
City crews tried to catch as much of the sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
History of sewage spills
Long Beach is no stranger to beach closures because of sewage spills, but it most commonly happens when sewage flows down the Los Angeles or San Gabriel rivers from upstream cities. Over one recent five-year span, local beaches were closed for 63 days because of upstream spills.
State law requires the closures any time sewage makes its way to the coast until testing shows the water meets quality standards. These rigorous rules don’t hold true for all types of spills.
