About 2.7 million gallons of both raw and treated sewage overflowed from a Marin County treatment facility into Corte Madera Creek and San Francisco Bay on Thursday evening after an alert system failed to properly notify workers at the facility, officials said today.
Signs have been posted at many popular San Francisco beaches - including Crissy Field, Baker Beach, Aquatic Park and China Beach - to discourage people from swimming in the water as a precaution.
The environmental impacts of the spill are unknown, though water quality officials said today that they are much less worried than they would have been if the sewage hadn't been treated at all.
Danehy said the spill was caused by operator error. The worker failed to set up enough pumps to direct all the water out of the Mill Valley plant, he said.
An alert system notified an off-site, private dispatch service, which should have let an on-call operator know, Tang said. But the operator didn't answer and instead of calling Danehy, as they should have, the dispatcher left a message.
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Too frustrated to blog. I'm so bummed. 2.7 million gallons? No alarm? I need to take a walk, because, well, I can't freaking go swimming. What was the dispatcher thinking?
