Pounding rains force millions of gallons of raw sewage to spill from L.A. County sewers

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Heavy rains pummeling Southern California for the last several days are forcing millions of gallons of raw sewage to spew from sewer connections across Los Angeles County and flow into coastal waters off Long Beach and San Pedro, according to health and sanitation officials.

As communities throughout the Los Angeles Basin cope with mudflows, power outages and flooding, county sanitation crews have struggled to contain multiple sewage spills that have sent waste flowing down major streets and into storm drain systems leading to environmentally sensitive Cabrillo Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, among other locations.

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On Tuesday, sewage escaped through manhole covers near the Port of Long Beach and in Whittier, about 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles. County sanitation officials were still trying to quantify the amount of sewage that leaked into storm drains before the spill was contained.

On Monday, a far larger spill occurred in the unincorporated community of Rancho Dominguez, about 10 miles north of Long Beach. An estimated 8 million gallons overflowed manholes and streamed into storm drains that empty into the Dominguez Channel, which terminates at Cabrillo Beach, Langpap said.

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But the most egregious violation occurred in Carson during a rainstorm in December 2021, when a mainline ruptured, sending raw sewage into a residential neighborhood, down storm drains and into the Dominguez Channel before emptying into the Pacific Ocean.

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