MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- After a decade or more marked by a murky - even downright filthy - outlook, Camp Pendleton's sewage containment future is clearing ahead of schedule.
Base officials say an award presented June 14 underscores those prospects after the base enjoyed its best year in memory - not a single spill in 2004 - for keeping wastewater away from local waterways.
Brig. Gen. Michael R. Lehnert, commanding general of the base, presented the award to Pendleton's wastewater team for complying with the Clean Water Act a full three years ahead of an eight-year mandate to stem sewage spills here.
The cleanup came after one five-year stretch marred by 14,000 violations - including spilling 2 million gallons of waste in the Santa Margarita River Basin, said Tom Hoots, operations supervisor for the wastewater team.
"It was quite the accomplishment to meet the requirements ahead of schedule," said Arnie Thompson, a wastewater plant operator, adding that the solution was spawned after "a lot of input from the operators and staff."
The fix was a joint endeavor between the wastewater team, the Facilities Maintenance Department and base environmental officials, Hoots said.
Hoots declared that Camp Pendleton enjoyed a full year - and then some - of squeaky-clean sewage treatment in 2004 for the first time since anyone can remember.
"As of January of this year, we didn't have any spills for a year and a half," said Hoots, who declared the base in "full compliance" with federal water standards.
Previously, the base relied on infrastructure installed in the 1940s. But after federal-funding spigots opened, repairs and upgrades were put in place, and the base soon realized a 50-80 percent reduction in spills, Hoots said.
A new monitoring system that detects problems at lift stations and treatment plants was a substantial watershed, Hoots said.
Moreover, video lines were installed to spotlight pipe leaks.
The current infrastructure is vastly improved from just a few years ago, when a lack of money, maintenance personnel, equipment and other resources muddled the landscape, Hoots said.
Hoots is happy to be past the dark days.
"Now we have a program that can look at these problems," he added.
But Camp Pendleton is still nowhere near state-of-the-art sewage treatment. The base hopes to spend $200 million over the next five or six years, Melsbach said.
The scheme would consolidate five plants on the southern part of Camp Pendleton into one modern plant.
The consolidation would eliminate the old filtration process and usher in a higher level of treatment - making treated sewage suitable for irrigating the golf course and baseball fields.
Like Hoots, Melsbach - a 20-year veteran of wastewater treatment here - remembers the worst days, when spills were the rule rather than the exception.
But he's confident that new preventive maintenance and spill reduction techniques have put the old days to rest for good.
"The operations and maintenance of wastewater has improved 1,000 percent in the time I've been there," he said.
Efficiency is a major part of the improvement.
System assessments that took a week just a few years ago now take only a day, Hoots said.