Water normal, no criminal inquiry into sewage spill
By Kathryn Reed
The latest bacteria results from Tahoe Keys Marina show normal levels.
“The results show concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria that represents typical surface waters of this nature,” Lauri Kemper, deputy director Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, said in a statement.
The May 7 samples are the last Lahontan intends to take. However, this does not mean the investigation is over.
Lahontan is continuing to work with El Dorado County Environmental Health Department and South Tahoe Public Utility District. That should be completed in the next couple weeks.
“I spoke with environmental health officials who explained that there is no indication of criminal conduct, as alluded to on a Facebook posting. The health department official was reportedly present when the plumber cleared the line. For this reason, we will not be conducting any investigation into the fecal matter,” South Lake Tahoe Police Chief Brian Uhler told Lake Tahoe News.
While fire departments can be part of these types of investigations, it often depends who is called first. In this case Lahontan received the first alert on May 4 that there had been a sewage spill from the Fresh Ketch restaurant in South Lake Tahoe that flowed onto a walkway into Lake Tahoe.
“If we would have been called via 911, we would have responded to the spill at the marina. I am guessing no one thought of us, but we would have sent a hazardous materials response and worked with the Coast Guard,” SLT Fire Chief Jeff Meston told Lake Tahoe News.
I’m somewhat surprised that none of the vociferous individuals who so fervently posted on this website regarding the May 4th article on this topic have posted nothing about this article. Interesting.
We are somewhat gob smacked. Wonder what the pay off to lahontan and the trpa must have been. If it looks and smells like s h I t, it must be….you get the drift…
It’ll be good to know that it’s ok to dump sewage in the Lake!
I’ll wait & see about a final decision. But if none of these agencies in our Basin & Town have a problem with such acts, why do they even exist?
Incredibly, it is legal to dump sudsy dishwater into Lake Tahoe. But not in the LA River.
4-mer-usmc & Parker, 4-mer, Yes ,I was “vociferous”, nice word by the way, (don’t know how to pronounce it and you don’t hear it very often), in my angst concerning the sewage leak in the keys.
I was surprized, but not by much, that the fecal matter magically disapeared from the marina and there were no fines or clean up required. No prosecution of the guilty party’s and the whole thing was just swept under the rug as I previously stated. Much ado about nothing, I suppose. One last thing 4-mer, you write very well…there are some very smart people who comment here and your one of em’.
Parker, This does set a dangerous precedent! Polluting the lake is now allowed without worry of a fine or penalty! I guess that depends on who you know and how much money you’ve got to blow, to the right people of course.
Plastic bags in a toilet or a pipe, take your pick, angry evicted tennat, possibly( and I hope not) paid off officials, owner of the marina with a criminal record and LOTS of dough. Man, some things in this town never change.
Sweet dreams, OLS
I am really confused by this article, the way i read it is that there will be no police investigation of someone putting plastic pages into the pipes and that the health department and lohontan are still investigatin otherwise there would not been a statement about several more weeks. But it seems everyone else is reading it as if nothing further will be done.
“It’ll be good to know that it’s ok to dump sewage in the Lake! ”
a) it isn’t
b) you have no reason to think that it is
c) i see what you are doing with that comment. hyperbolic bullplop.
d) ” But if none of these agencies in our Basin & Town have a problem with such acts, why do they even exist?”
– stupid questions deserve stupid answers in most cases, unless the question is so stupid that it doesn’t deserve to be dignified with an answer.
ELSE answer = NULL
Oh, I get it….that wasn’t POOP, it was GRAVY. Wonder what you’d put poop gravy on…
Well if you’re supposed to protect the Lake, and there’s no punishment and no one is held responsible for this act, (we’ll see the end result, but that sure appears how it’s headed) then it in essence gets an ok. Get it?
And what are all these agencies supposed to be protrecting the Lake from, if there’s no punishment for sewage going in?
I guess I’m just some radical environmentalist in being opposed to sewage going into our Lake?!
Hmmm, Poop gravy! You’re funny as usual but I hope it’s an image I can get out of my head. Poop gravy and nobody was fined, no clean up and everyone will forget about it in a short time. Except those of us who think this was a VERY big deal! OLS
Interesting. My company processes Hazardous Medical Waste. Our closed system must dispose of the very clean liquid at the end of our process. If any of this clean liquid were to accidentally run into the sewer our fine would automatically start at $10,000.00 plus. We would still be fined no matter who may have created the problem.
Very disappointed with this non-protection of our lake.
It is criminal some times how local, state, and federal agencies look the other way.
I find most of the blather about the Ketch sewage release unbelievably crass and poorly thought out.
This was a very small event…a very few gallons if that.
As distasteful as it is, this is an insignificant event. Nobody needs to be shot, jailed, fined or sued for such a thing.
I can’t remember the number of spills reported in the 30 odd years I have lived here, but it is a lot. Mostly from broken sewer lines and accidental punctures by excavation. Many of these were in the thousands of gallons.
All you loud, poorly informed people need to take a break and do a little research before you unload on everybody who was within 500 feet of the Ketch last week.
It was apparently an accident. OK, it is not smart to flush plastic bags in any sewer facility. However if you believe this is uncommon, please talk to any plumber in town, or one of the crew at STPUD who deals with this on a daily basis.
Fecal coliform bacteria at low levels is one of the most common bacteria found in the
environment. Anything that eats and defecates puts coliform in the environment. Air and sunlight begin degrading it immediately, and it basically kills fairly easily.
There are legally allowable amounts in water that people use, (even your drinking water) and the testing done on this spill clearly showed, as was reported, rapid reduction in the levels of bacteria to levels of no concern.
The dogs and cats and other domestic animals in SLT put hundreds of times more bacteria in the environment on a daily basis than this Keys event did. We have dog beaches….what do you think about that?
Your lawn sprinkler system, poorly maintained, can cause coliform pollution of your and your neighbors drinking water. Should you be fined or jailed for this, or just fix the problem?
Fertilizing your lawns and flowers with certain products also introduces coliform into the environment. Should you be fined or jailed for this, or just excercise care in application?
Compost? You don’t even want to think about that if you think the Keys release was a major deal.
My belief is, based on many years of boating on Tahoe,(by observation) that on any summer day on the lake, boats dumping porta-potties into the lake when they don’t see anyone looking amounts to many times the volume of this Keys release.
Finally,what does the fact (using this word loosley since I do not know) that the Keys Manager has a criminal record have to do with anything related to this sewage spill?
Is speeding against the law? Of course it is and speeding is a more egregious violation and more apt to cause serious injury to someone than the sewer spill is. And yes, 10 days or so ago, I was ticketed for speeding. Nobody is innocent all the time. Guilty of something yesterday, does not mean you are guilty of something today.
It is easy not to like the owners and management of the Keys Marina, based on things they did, have alleged to have done, or the way they run the business. I could say the same thing about most politicians I can think of,local state and federal, but I am not trying to jail or fine them all, without some proof they are felons.
@OLS…poop gravy goes best on golden goose!
@observer…contrary to popular belief amongst the libturdarian branch of republicanism there is a reason why the gub’mint has standards governing things such as sewage discharge and how it is dealt with. Now, if you are proposing drinking some of that contaminated water ‘fresh’ out of the sewer to prove how benign it is…
South Tahoe never disappoints , you can put the rest together
observer:
Well said. One poop element that no one has mentioned is the huge amount of goose poop that goes into the Lake and into our environment on a daily basis. I was the extremely unfortunate recipient of an overhead goose **** landing smack on my windshield when driving on Highway 50 and the degree to which my vehicle was covered required an immediate trip to the car wash, as no windshield washer fluid and wipers offered any effectiveness in the elimination of that mess. That thing must have weighed five pounds!
I guess for many people on these blogs the real enjoyment can be derived simply from the lighting of the torches and clutching of pitchforks, akin to a scene out of Young Frankenstein (or the original Frankenstein)!
Spouse – 4-mer-usmc
We should all be lucky we have water..
@spouse-awesome image…a five pound schploogie of goose poo exploding across one’s windshield! thanks for the chuckle.
@boater…I’m grateful I have water. That it is relatively clean is not a matter of luck. I’m not sure what your sentence means.
I can see the scene now: they are in the la-bora-tory…
Eye-gor played by, say, ‘observer’ is frumping in the corner….Dr. Fronkenshteen-played by, say…
‘Cosa Pescado’
Cosa Pescado: “say…wasn’t your bag of poop on the other side of the dock?’
Observer: ‘What poop?”
Cue the torches and pitchforks….
The real story here is that Lahontan Water started an investigation about 45 days ago after a long time employee of the Tahoe Keys Marina came forward. The employee stated that he was ordered by GM Spinnato to cover up numerous unreported fuel spills by dumping dish soap into the water. He also stated that there is an abandoned diesel fuel line that runs from the launch ramp along the bulkhead by the Ketch to the fuel dock. The line was never emptied of diesel & leaks a few times a year. Each time that this happens Spinnato blames it on boats in the area. The employee also states that for the last few springs Spinnato had him pump runoff water out of a retention pound into the lake. The spring of 2013 he was ordered to do that in the middle of the night so the local neighbors would not know.
These are all true facts that can be verified there were other employees involved & when questioned they will tell the truth.
So,now you know !!
Next time a sewer situation erupts – call the Health Department and/or the Fire Dept. They will take immediate action with HazMat clean-up and start the investigation by inviting all the other agencies in. I think most fire departments are pretty transparant. Just my opinion from experience.
Although I am not clairvoyant like some other commenters, I can’t help but wonder how a similar situation might have been handled if this had occurred on a homeowner’s property. Observing overreactions by various agencies for 40 years, I expected a different reaction. At least it appears that any effect was minimal.