Each evening, when he takes the neighbor’s dog for a walk, Bird Rock resident David Nightingale monitors the progress of the new Longs drugstore being built in the 5400 block of La Jolla Boulevard.
Once the site was cleared, construction had been proceeding apace with a giant crane driving 40- to 50-foot steel/iron beams into the ground 6 to 8 feet apart to mark the building’s perimeter.
After a slight hiccup in progress due to the discovery and subsequent removal of old buried gas tanks from a filling station that occupied the site years ago, heavy equipment began excavating the store’s 19,000-square-foot underground parking lot.
“As they dug they mounted boards to hold back the dirt,” Nightingale said. “But about two weeks ago, water started coming up.”
At this point, the hole was about 12 to 16 feet, Nightingale estimated, and the water was a 2- to 3-foot puddle. Workers dammed it off, but the pool kept growing.
Under a hot sun, it is now an 8- to 10-foot pool that is “green, scummy, slimy with foam floating on the top,” Nightingale said.
He thinks the water could be an underground spring, or perhaps a creek of runoff water from irrigation on Mount Soledad. Nearby Calumet Park beach has had a seep that drains onto the beach for 35 or 40 years, he said.
Those who live near the site are not only concerned about the smell of the stagnant water but the possibility of mosquitoes hatching there ” perhaps carrying the West Nile virus, Nightingale said.
A city inspector and an environmental engineer were scheduled to visit the site Wednesday, Aug. 22, according to William Barranon, a chief combination inspector for the City of San Diego. City officials were also in contact with Sudberry Properties, the project’s developer, he added.
If the water is contaminated or otherwise unclean, it cannot be pumped out of the hole and indiscriminately dumped.
“It would have to be treated and then pumped into the drainage system,” Barranon said.
On Aug. 21, the city’s Metropolitan Waste Water Department issued a permit to the contractor to pump the water away from the site after tests showed no contaminants, according to Keely Smith, spokeswoman for District 1 City Councilman Scott Peters.
The water “is groundwater, probably combined with regular irrigation runoff from the homes above,” Smith said.
The contractor had not applied for a permit to discharge the water ahead of time, so had to wait for it to be issued and also had to wait for the proper pumping equipment, Smith said.
“I am happy to report that [the water at the site] showed no sign of contaminants and that the contractor has already been issued the approval it needs to dispose of the water in a manner that will not harm the environment,” Peters said in a prepared statement. “… In the future, I encourage residents to alert me about other issues like this, so I can make sure they get the immediate attention they deserve."