CORONA DEL MAR TODAY

Crews Repair One of Two Broken Lines; Water Warnings Remain in Place

County health warnings remain in place today for water off Bayside Drive near Balboa Island, but crews have repaired one line that has island residents’ sewer service up and running normally.

Dredging workers damaged a sewer line about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday about 100 yards away from the Balboa Yacht Club, causing 2,800 gallons of sewage to spill. At first, city officials believed a second backup line also was damaged in the incident.

Divers worked until 2 a.m., then returned to work this morning and finally were able to repair a broken valve on a backup sewer line that may have been unrelated to the incident on Wednesday, said Chris Miller, the city’s harbor resources manager.

Newport Beach vactor trucks, along with additional trucks from Costa Mesa, the Irvine Ranch Water District and the Orange County Sanitation District were on hand throughout the night and all morning, manually moving waste from a station on Balboa Island to another facility on Bayside Drive so that Balboa Island residents’ would have uninterrupted service.

“It was a great team effort,” Miller said. “I have to give a lot of credit to the people, our neighboring cities, the agencies, the contractor and subcontractor divers who all helped out.”

The repaired line is the backup line, and although it is now operational, work to repair the newer line still remains to be done.

Miller said that crews would begin early next week making those repairs.

“That’s the next hurdle,” he said, “but at least we got our service back.”

The dredging project has not been interrupted, he said in an earlier interview.

Read our earlier story here.

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