The State - News from May 25, 1988

A mile of Laguna Beach shoreline is expected to reopen today after a million gallons of raw sewage spilled into the ocean last weekend. Robert E. Merryman, Orange County director of environmental health, said water samples showed “some sewage in the ocean” but little, if any, threat to human health. An electrical failure at a pumping station near the beach caused raw sewage to begin flowing through an old, abandoned outfall line to a point 3,100 feet offshore. The sewage is supposed to run through a larger line that dumps it 8,000 feet from the beach. The spill was not reported to the health department until Monday, a spokesman said, because neither worker on duty “found any signs of a spill at the site and neither man knew that when a failure occurred, raw sewage was automatically diverted to the old outfall at Laguna Beach.”