Alameda County Grand Jury • 2017-2018

Oakland's Aging Sewer System and Lake Temescal*

Published: October 12, 2018 11 pages

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⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.

⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.

Findings and Recommendations 4 findings

F18-30

Oakland Public Works and the East Bay Regional Park District in notifying the public about Lake Temescal closures and the reasons for those closures gives the perception that public agencies are keeping important information from the community. Failure to supervise third party contractors repairing Oakland's

No recommendations for this finding

F18-31

sewer lines and failure to require them to submit detailed reports of their repairs impede compliance with state reporting requirements and make it difficult to troubleshoot when future problems occurs on the same sewer lines.

No recommendations for this finding

F18-32

Oakland Public Works' current sewer related training and technical certifications focus on only a few key employees, resulting in its sewer crews lacking broad technical knowledge. This lack of depth limits operational flexibility and succession planning. The Grand Jury learned that in two cases during 2017, onsite

No recommendations for this finding

F18-33

estimates that sewage overflows exceeded 50,000 gallons were later reduced below 50,000 gallons by a supervisor back at the office, giving the perception that the volume was reduced to avoid additional testing and reporting required by the state.

No recommendations for this finding

Conclusions 1

CL1

Lake Temescal was designed in the mid-1880s to collect water that flows off the nearby Oakland hills. Dense urbanization, however, has made the job far more complex by significantly expanding the types of liquids that could flow into the lake. A substantial portion of the area's sewer and drain pipes were laid during the 1920s when residential neighborhoods were first being developed in the Temescal area. Preserving the integrity of this drainage system is challenging, and natural phenomena such as heavy rains, tree root incursions, and seismic activity can easily push the aging clay pipes beyond their limit. The Grand Jury believes that these shortcomings can be managed. Doing so, however, requires OPW and EBRPD to focus on organizational fundamentals such as modern communication strategies, inter-agency partnerships, and staff training and development. In addition, these improvements must be supported by improved record-keeping. Lake Temescal's popularity with the public and the potential health hazards from contamination make corrective actions absolutely necessary. With the public's interests in mind, the Grand Jury offers the following findings and recommendations for immediate consideration and action. 2017-2018 Alameda County Grand Jury Final Report

No Responses Found 2

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.

East Bay Regional Park District Special District

Oakland City

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.