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This is a detail from the mural, showing a brown sea & deplicting
life in Pacific Grove early in the 1900's. Sewage from Pacific Grove was
designed to be dumped directly into Monterey Bay at the time the system
was designed.
The mural is about one hundred feet from the operating sewer pumping plant (Below) that still pumps sewage to this day. It is now pumped to a treating facility, unless there is backup, in that case raw sewage is illegally dumped into Monterey Bay. |
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| This is a Feb. 2000 picture of the sewage pumping plant near the bottom of 15th Street in Pacific Grove. In the background you can see the 7 Gables Inn. When there is a clog the raw (Untreated) sewage is illegally & directly dumped into Monterey Bay through the outlet pipe (Below). This is about 200 yards from Lover's Point. Often raw sewage flows down the street gutters & flows into the bay through one of the many gutter water outlet pipes. There is one that is about 4 feet wide (Second picture below). |  |
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The blue sewer outlet pipe releases the clog pressure. The untreated sewage then flows into the bay. The gutter water pipe is for gutter water that flows into the bay 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (Bottom of 15th Street near the 7 Gables Inn). There is no alarm system to detect spills. The city completely relies on citizens to alert them of spills. The beaches are supposed to be posted 'No Swimming,' but most of the time they are not. Of four recent sewer spills (One more than 70,000 gallons), in four months (1999-2000), Lover's Point beach was observed to be posted only once. The County claimed that someone was taking down the signs. Perhaps a real estate agent concerned about property values? | |
| This is the four foot wide overflow pipe at Lover's Point at the bottom
of Forest Ave. We think that it was the original sewer pipe when sewer
was dumped directly into the bay instead of being treated first. In the
background you can see the Grand View Inn at the bottom of Grand Ave.
The pipe directly dumps perhaps hundreds of thousands of gallons of gutter water into the bay each year. |
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