Rancho Palos Verdes Beach Reopens After Massive Raw Sewage Spill

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA — Rancho Palos Verdes Beach reopened Monday following a large-scale raw sewage spill that prompted beach closures from Los Angeles to Orange County.

The beach closure now remains in effect only for Inner Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro.

Several beaches across the Southland were closed on New Years Day after a massive amount of untreated sewage was released into the Dominguez Channel, public health officials announced.

The spill ranged from 2 million to 4 million gallons to as high as 6 million gallons, the Los Angeles Public Health Department said in a statement on Friday.

All Los Angeles County beaches up to and including Rancho Palos Verdes Beach were closed. Seal Beach was also closed, officials said.

"The affected ocean water area will remain closed to swimming, surfing, and diving until the results of follow-up water quality monitoring meet acceptable standards," officials wrote in a statement.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn called for a full investigation into how the sewage spill occurred.

"A sewage spill of this magnitude is dangerous and unacceptable and we need to understand what happened," Hahn wrote in a statement released Friday. "The recent storm undoubtedly contributed to the spill but we need infrastructure that doesn't fail when it rains. I am calling on L.A. County Sanitation Districts to do a full investigation into the cause of the spill and whether aging or faulty infrastructure was involved."

Sanitation crews were working in Los Angeles and Long Beach to clean up the immediately impacted areas, health officials said.

Recorded information on beach conditions is available 24-hours a day on the County's beach advisory hotline: 1-800-525-5662. Information is also available online at http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/beach/.