Murphys Sanitary District Spill

The first call made by MSD to report the spill was inadvertently made to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and not to OES. As a result, OES, in charge of disseminating information about the spill to all state and local agencies, has never been able to inform local agencies of the spill. A call to the City of Angels wastewater treatment plant was made by MSD notifying the treatment plant of the spill of raw sewage into Angels Creek. A call and fax reporting the spill was made by MSD to the CRWQCB. As of the writing of this report OES still has no record of being notified.

Media notification and Public Posting of sewage spills in excess of 1000 gallons is required by order of the Calaveras County Health Officer in compliance with §13271 of the California Water Code. A ‘Memorandum’, dated March of 1999, from the Calaveras County Health Officer was sent via certified mail to all County sanitary districts specifying procedures for notification, public and media. The spill of raw sewage into Angels Creek, November 26 and 27, 2006 received no public posting or media notification from MSD.

The spill occurred over a weekend and was discovered early Monday, November 27th 2006. When MSD staff first reported the spill to the Calaveras County Environmental Health Department, a message reporting the spill was left on the department’s voice mail because the office had not yet opened. Once the message was heard, the department did not follow up, because the department did not have an internal follow up policy in place to be sure the spill was receiving all necessary attention.