Goleta West Sanitary District is facing the consequences of flooding more than one million gallons of raw sewage into the Goleta Slough right before a four-day storm dropped more than 10 inches of rain in the watershed above. In a settlement that is still pending, the district will pay $1.5 million for a new program to improve drinking water in wells around the county, rather than the penalty of $10.7 million that could have been imposed, according to the settlement agreement reached with the Central Coast Water Board.
The Spill
When Goleta West’s Brian McCarthy and Joey Hilliard met at the airport property bordering the slough the morning of February 17, 2024, they found a mucky brown mess on the grassy edge. The day before, a contractor had been doing repairs late into the day at the pump house near Goleta West headquarters at the edge of UC Santa Barbara. As was standard practice after a repair, McCarthy, Goleta West’s superintendent, and Hilliard, who steps into that job next year, had returned to walk the main lines that Saturday in the daylight…