_{Thumbnail photo by James Brooks}

Noting that Crescent City has five to 10 years to ensure its sewer plant meets stricter regulations governing its effluent, City Manager Eric Wier introduced a pilot project aimed at fixing the system’s defects.

The pilot project involves making spot repairs to a handful of areas within the city’s 17-mile network of sewage pipes to prevent groundwater from getting into the system during the rainy season. 

It’s this groundwater infiltration coupled with aging equipment that prevents the plant from meeting National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit rules governing total coliform and enteral cocci bacteria, according to the city manager. But instead of paying a $258,000 fine, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is allowing Crescent City to apply that figure to the pilot project, Wier said.

“Instead of paying the state the fine, they allow us as a disadvantaged community to use that money and be able to put some of these repairs in place,” he told the City Council on Monday.

Councilors unanimously approved a settlement agreement with the Regional Water Quality Control Board that formalizes that arrangement. The estimated cost for the pilot project is $300,000, which councilors approved as part of the city’s 2026-27 budget.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board fined Crescent City $258,000 in August 2025 due to the NPDES’s stricter regulations concerning the sewer plant’s effluent. According to a staff report Public Works Director Dave Yeager and Engineering Project Manager James Queen prepared, the Water Board tied 86 effluent violations to mandatory minimum penalties totaling $258,000.

On Monday, Wier said the wastewater system’s current technology, which consists of rotating biological contactors that were installed in the 1970s and a more up-to-date membrane biological reactor, can meet regulations during dry weather, when 800,000 to 900,000 million gallons come into the plant per day.

The plant’s membrane biological reactor is overwhelmed when inflow increases to more than 1.2 million gallons per day, Wier said.

“In the winter time, we will see up to 2 million gallons per day,” he said. “And during storm events, you can see 6, 7 , and 8 million gallons per day going through the treatment plant.”

The pilot project aims to use a “cured in place pipe” technique that avoids excavating the street to repair underground pipes at two locations. The first location is on A Street and 2nd Street near Oceanfront Lodge. 

The second location includes four repairs in the Harding Park subdivision with three taking place on Harding Avenue, according to Monday’s staff report.

Pipe repairs may also take place at a third location, near the intersection of U.S. 101 and Elk Valley Road north of the Chevron gas station. This repair could be added to satisfy the stipulation that the project expenditure must equal the $258,000 fine, according to the staff report.

On Monday, though Wier said the pilot project will address some of the defects, it won’t be enough to solve the problem.

“The problem is the collection system is so vast and this is our portion of it,” he said.

Sewage from the County Service Area No. 1, the system that serves residents in the unincorporated area, also flows into the wastewater treatment plant. Its collection system is double the city’s, Wier said.

Crescent City will be sending out a request for proposals in the next six weeks to engineers who can conduct a study to determine how much groundwater infiltrates the system and flows into the sewage plant, Wier said.

The pilot project drew criticism from members of the public. One commenter, Sam Strait questioned the logic of trying to lower the amount of rainwater that infiltrates the system with the influx of multi-family complexes in various stages of development.

Another, Cate Classen, asked about how efforts related to increasing tourism will affect the sewer plant due to an “increase in volume of bodies flushing toilets.”

“I think maybe we want to think about do we have the water capacity for tourism,” she said. 

Councilman Steve Shamblin, who was on the Planning Commission before he was appointed to his seat earlier this year, said he asked about capacity.

“There have been several presentations by Eric (Wier) … we’d been assured that there is the capacity to handle our future growth, so I’m really not concerned about it right now,” Shamblin said. “There are repairs that have to be done — that’s like anywhere else — and in the future, way down the line, we do want to build a new plant somewhere else away from the ocean.”

Wier also responded to Classen’s statement by mentioning the Fourth of July.

“This town swells during the summer. It swells during the Fourth of July,” he said. “The treatment plant can handle the Fourth of July loading we have. What we can’t handle, and what’s going to happen regardless of if we hook another person up or not, are these wet weather events.”