The State - News from Aug. 11, 1989

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography has objected to a proposed sewage-treatment plant, because it might include an ocean outfall pipe that would discharge treated waste water near a relatively pristine tract of ocean close to the prestigious institution. “It is vital to our operation” that nearby ocean waters “remain natural and unpolluted,” Scripps Director Edward A. Frieman wrote in an April letter to San Diego sewage treatment officials detailing the institution’s concerns about an encroachment in an area Scripps scientists have used for research projects for almost 70 years. Some environmentalists, however, say that Frieman’s objection contradicts claims by individual Scripps scientists that the treated waste water pumped through an outfall pipe is actually a healthy addition to the ocean.