Big Bear, Ca, September 22, 2011, 12:00pm – If you have been over to the East Boat Ramp on the Northshore of Big Bear Lake recently you may have noticed signs urging swimmers to stay out of the water. Early Tuesday morning, east boat ramp workers showed up at 7:00am to open up the ramp, and noticed some sewage was leaking near the building, and some had gone in the water. The Big Bear Area Wastewater Agency immediately responded and found a small leak in a pipe at the boat ramp. By 7:30am the leak had been contained and fixed. According to Joe Hanford, BBARWA Plant Superintendent, the leak was estimated to be 100 gallons of sewage that went into the lake. While that may seem like a lot to you, Scott Heule at the MWD told KBHR that this amount is actually very small when you look at the size of the lake. An acre foot is 325,000 gallons, and currently there are 70,000 acre feet, meaning there is 22,750,000,000 gallons of water in the lake, which means the 100 gallon spill was very insignificant. Hanford told KBHR that the only problem with the spill is that it happened in a small bay, which means the spill was contained, however yesterdays water samples show that the water in the bay is already cleaning up, and by tomorrow that area should be clear to swim in again. Huele told KBHR that BBARWA was great, and that they responded immediately, taking care of the problem.
