Followup article on Sewage spill at http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/METRO/t000055112.html Untill they remove it.

Saturday, June 19, 1999 Fears of Sewage Spill Delay Y2K Test at Plant By PATRICK MCGREEVY, KARIMA A. HAYNES, Times Staff Writers

Los Angeles officials will delay tests for year 2000 computer readiness at the Hyperion Treatment Plant until they are certain that there will be no sewage spills that could endanger Santa Monica Bay. In an emergency briefing of the city Public Works Board on Friday, Sanitation Bureau Manager Drew Sones said tests of Hyperion's backup electrical system--scheduled for next month--will be delayed while testing procedures are reexamined. A computer glitch during a Y2K test earlier this week sent nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage spilling from the Daniel C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, forcing the closure of about 10 acres of Woodley Avenue Park until at least Monday. Hyperion treats 370 million gallons of sewage a day--nearly six times more than the Tillman plant. "No other drills will be done until those [test] protocols are reviewed again," Sones told the board. Mark Gold of the environmental group Heal the Bay lauded the decision to delay testing. "Based on the Tillman incident, additional planning to assure there is not a similar or larger spill at Hyperion is extremely prudent," Gold said. Public Works Board members were particularly troubled that it took an hour and 15 minutes before officials realized they were losing millions of gallons of sewage. During a test of a backup power system, the computers were switched off, triggering a pipe to close by mistake and causing the backup. Robert Birk, the Tillman plant manager, acknowledged that officials erred by not having someone stationed outside to watch for problems. A park ranger on his rounds called plant operators at 12:05 a.m. Thursday to report the spill, Birk said. "Looking back, we should have had somebody out there," Birk told the board. "We thought we had everything covered. Obviously, we didn't have every detail covered." Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true. Initially, city officials said 4 million gallons had spilled. They revised that estimate Friday to 3 million gallons, still a significant spill, officials said. The Tillman test, and similar drills at the city's other three treatment plants, are aimed at determining whether the facilities can use backup generators and power sources to continue treating sewage if Y2K problems cause an interruption to the city's main power system. Birk disclosed Friday that when the power was turned off at Tillman about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, a problem with the diesel generator forced engineers to shut it down while a plug in an oil system could be cleared. When the power was turned back on, a computer sent an improper signal that closed a gate in an 8-foot-diameter pipeline carrying waste to Hyperion. Sewage backed up and spilled from the maintenance hole in the park starting about 10:50 p.m., Birk said. Birk blamed the problem on bad programming language put into the computer when it was installed in the 1980s. The department plans to check the programming language at Hyperion, the Terminal Island Treatment Plant and the Los Angeles-Glendale Water Reclamation Plant before trying tests at those facilities, officials said. "The good news is, should we lose power on Jan. 1, we will be able to operate the plant," Birk told the board. Later Friday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to spend $7 million for equipment purchases to bring Sanitation Bureau computers into Y2K compliance, so they can properly read the date when 1999 changes to 2000. The funding plan, which was scheduled before the Tillman spill, will allow the department to upgrade about 800 pieces of machinery that have been identified as needing upgrades--including new software and computer chips, Sones said. On Friday, golfers, cyclists, inline skaters and joggers seemed oblivious to the spill that shut down Woodley Avenue Park at the northern edge of the recreation area. Several people said they had heard about the spill, but the presence of raw sewage didn't keep them away. "I was scared when I first heard about it," said Jill Latham, an actress and jogger from Northridge. "But I thought, 'Oh well, bad things happen.' " Golfer Jim Abro of North Hills said he called the clubhouse at Woodley Golf Course, across the street from the closed park, before heading out to the links Friday. "I thought that I might have to find a tee time somewhere else," he said, "but they said the golf course was open." Despite the presence of raw sewage, and a sign warning them to keep off the grass, Bianca Castelenos of Lake View Terrace and Marina Ibarra of Reseda refused to change their walking routine. The women said they always walk on the grass on the east side of Woodley rather than across the street on the paved path because they fear traffic on Woodley. Castelenos said: "I'm more concerned that people in cars will run me over than by raw sewage."

[My comments: This area is in a flood control zone to catch overflow from L.A.'s 'cement pond' river which often floods during L.A.'s rainy season. It's about 20 feet below surrounding terrain and the roads are closed during storms.

Funny, L.A's publicity motto is "You'd Be Amazed at What Grows in Los Angeles"]

-- jjbeck (jjbeck@recycler.com), June 19, 1999

Answers

oooooooooooooo, jj, that article is alarming, to say the least! TSHTF! Pasting it here with paragraph separations:

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

Fears of Sewage Spill Delay Y2K Test at Plant

Saturday, June 19, 1999, By PATRICK MCGREEVY, KARIMA A. HAYNES, Times Staff Writers

  Los Angeles officials will delay tests for year 2000 computer readiness at the Hyperion Treatment Plant until they are certain that there will be no sewage spills that could endanger Santa Monica Bay.

In an emergency briefing of the city Public Works Board on Friday, Sanitation Bureau Manager Drew Sones said tests of Hyperion's backup electrical system--scheduled for next month--will be delayed while testing procedures are reexamined.

A computer glitch during a Y2K test earlier this week sent nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage spilling from the Daniel C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, forcing the closure of about 10 acres of Woodley Avenue Park until at least Monday.

Hyperion treats 370 million gallons of sewage a day--nearly six times more than the Tillman plant.

"No other drills will be done until those [test] protocols are reviewed again," Sones told the board.

Mark Gold of the environmental group Heal the Bay lauded the decision to delay testing.

"Based on the Tillman incident, additional planning to assure there is not a similar or larger spill at Hyperion is extremely prudent," Gold said.

Public Works Board members were particularly troubled that it took an hour and 15 minutes before officials realized they were losing millions of gallons of sewage.

During a test of a backup power system, the computers were switched off, triggering a pipe to close by mistake and causing the backup.

Robert Birk, the Tillman plant manager, acknowledged that officials erred by not having someone stationed outside to watch for problems. A park ranger on his rounds called plant operators at 12:05 a.m. Thursday to report the spill, Birk said.

"Looking back, we should have had somebody out there," Birk told the board. "We thought we had everything covered. Obviously, we didn't have every detail covered."

Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true.

Initially, city officials said 4 million gallons had spilled. They revised that estimate Friday to 3 million gallons, still a significant spill, officials said.

The Tillman test, and similar drills at the city's other three treatment plants, are aimed at determining whether the facilities can use backup generators and power sources to continue treating sewage if Y2K problems cause an interruption to the city's main power system.

Birk disclosed Friday that when the power was turned off at Tillman about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday, a problem with the diesel generator forced engineers to shut it down while a plug in an oil system could be cleared.

When the power was turned back on, a computer sent an improper signal that closed a gate in an 8-foot-diameter pipeline carrying waste to Hyperion. Sewage backed up and spilled from the maintenance hole in the park starting about 10:50 p.m., Birk said.

Birk blamed the problem on bad programming language put into the computer when it was installed in the 1980s.

The department plans to check the programming language at Hyperion, the Terminal Island Treatment Plant and the Los Angeles-Glendale Water Reclamation Plant before trying tests at those facilities, officials said.

"The good news is, should we lose power on Jan. 1, we will be able to operate the plant," Birk told the board.

Later Friday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to spend $7 million for equipment purchases to bring Sanitation Bureau computers into Y2K compliance, so they can properly read the date when 1999 changes to 2000.

The funding plan, which was scheduled before the Tillman spill, will allow the department to upgrade about 800 pieces of machinery that have been identified as needing upgrades--including new software and computer chips, Sones said.

On Friday, golfers, cyclists, inline skaters and joggers seemed oblivious to the spill that shut down Woodley Avenue Park at the northern edge of the recreation area. Several people said they had heard about the spill, but the presence of raw sewage didn't keep them away.

"I was scared when I first heard about it," said Jill Latham, an actress and jogger from Northridge. "But I thought, 'Oh well, bad things happen.' "

Golfer Jim Abro of North Hills said he called the clubhouse at Woodley Golf Course, across the street from the closed park, before heading out to the links Friday.

"I thought that I might have to find a tee time somewhere else," he said, "but they said the golf course was open."

Despite the presence of raw sewage, and a sign warning them to keep off the grass, Bianca Castelenos of Lake View Terrace and Marina Ibarra of Reseda refused to change their walking routine.

The women said they always walk on the grass on the east side of Woodley rather than across the street on the paved path because they fear traffic on Woodley.

Castelenos said: "I'm more concerned that people in cars will run me over than by raw sewage."
--------------------------------------------------------------- br> xxxxxxxxxxxx xx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 19, 1999.

"Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true. "

Yessir, it's a good thing these were highly trained professionals conducting this test....who knows what might have gone wrong if they hadn't been? I'll bet they're more careful next time! And I'd bet other utilities can't wait to try this out at their very own sewage plant.

Besides, when it does happen, it turns all the flora so green....hey pump some of that sludge into my yard....ankle deep if you don't mind.

-- Charles R. (chuck_roast@trans.net), June 19, 1999.

(snip) Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true. (snip) Wow! Is this before or after their attempt at remediation? Either way, it is really disturbing.

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), June 19, 1999.

Aging sewage facilities. Aging nuclear power stations. Aging chemical plants. Aging oil refineries. Aging airliners. Aging ATC facilities. Y2K.

-- a (a@a.a), June 19, 1999.

And how much do you want to bet that in many of these aging places, you have relatively young and inexperienced operators who only know how to run the automated systems, with no idea how it really works, much less how to do it manually? The folks who used to know that kind of stuff retired -- or got layed off -- when the computers took over....

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), June 19, 1999.

According to my husband, it's nearly impossible to find people able to "just run the automated systems". Skilled *labor*? HAHAHAAHAHAHOOO Y2K PRO leaves Burger King and finds a job with The Board of Public Utilities. (yikes)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 19, 1999.

big news here in LA today...I'm shocked at the lack of the "bump in the road" crew.

Note, this was fear that caused them to NOT go through with the test. This fear is caused by a lack of confidence AND the recent spill in the valley.

It's playing all over the city on radio and TV. My hope is that awareness just shot up a few percentage points.

Mike ================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 19, 1999.

This is a case where the s--- literally hit the fan.

It points out one reason why Y2K will definitely be a 10. If one incident can overwhelm the agency responsible for its repair, what will happen when 1000s of incidents occur within a short period of time. Pollys like to point out that computer systems fail all the time and the maintenance crews get them up and running quickly enough that the public rarely knows that there was a problem. However, those crews are small and possess unique and hard-to-learn skills. If they cannot keep up with the problems, the whole system will collapse.

-- Mr. Adequate (mr@adequate.com), June 19, 1999.

Mr. Adequate,

Great point. These are two facilities in a huge metro area with dozens if not more scattered throughout. Also, water, oil refineries, chemical plants, the list goes on and on. LA has now had 3 major foul ups in city testing in about a month and judging by the severe lack of confidence in the city officials desire to continue testing I have to side behalf of my worst fear too. I hope the city plans on beginning to warn residents soon to the dangers ahead.

Mike ===============================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 20, 1999.

Hope so too Mike... for your sake and lots of my SoCal relatives!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 20, 1999.

Another telling indicator - again, another real-life precursor to the problem of "we will fix on failure" => "we have to find the failure to fix it" => "where is the problem?"

<< Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true. >>

This was the same thing that happened at TMI - only one valve was open, but it was enough to cause the leak that broke the plant. To only "slightly" exaggerate - everything has to run correctly for the system to work efficiently, economically, and correctly; but only one thing has to fail to cause the system to fail.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), June 20, 1999.

from csy2k:

> "Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true."

> Multiply 2000 alarms times 10,000 cities and towns times X chemical plants, Y refineries and Z power plants .. any wonder why some of us are concerned about the issue?

And that was just this one test.

When the real event happens, millions of alarms will go off. Some will be due to Y2K, some will be due to partygoers and pranksters pulling millennial alarms, and some will be due to actual burglars and thieves figuring "what better time?" to break in to some shop or warehouse than when millions of false alarms are going off.

Toast.

--Tim May

-----------------------------------------------------------------
xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 21, 1999.

"Birk said about 2,000 alarms went off in the first hour of the test, overwhelming operators who did not know which alarms were false and which were true."

Gee, this sounds familiar. Hummm, where did I see something like this before... Oh yea, here it is... <:)=

**As part of an experiment last year, technicians at the huge Xingo hydroelectric dam on Brazil's Sao Francisco River set the dates on the plant's main computer forward to Jan. 1, 2000.

**What happened next is still sending chills through Latin America.

**"When they put the date forward, the whole control board went haywire," remembers Marcos Ozorio, one of the members of Brazil's presidential Year 2000 commission. "Twelve thousand warning lights flashed all across the board, with all kinds of alarm information."

**Technicians quickly switched back the date, and are now ferreting out the plant's Y2K bugs. But "if you had been surprised by a situation like this, what you'd have had to do is shut down the plant until you found where the failures were," Ozorio said. "Automatically you'd be taking off the energy board 30 percent of northeast Brazil."

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.