CREWS COMPLETE REPAIRS OF DAMAGED SEWER LINE.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

The sewer pipelines in Thousand Oaks and Ojai were not the only ones overwhelmed by last month's storms.

Work crews with the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District have been fastidiously working the past month to repair a major sewer pipeline that carries nearly 2 million gallons of raw effluent from Calabasas and Hidden Hills to the Tapia Water Reclamation Plant in Agoura. On Monday, officials reported that the repairs - totaling more than $150,000 - were complete.

``That's probably the best money the district has spent,'' said Ken Rufener, a water district board member. ``If that line had broken, it would have poured more than a million gallons of sewage down Malibu Creek.''

An intense storm Feb. 9 washed away two of four beams supporting a 24-inch, above-water pipeline that crosses Malibu Creek near Las Virgenes Road. Additional rain that same week loosened the roots of a 30-foot-tall oak, leaving it tilting precariously over the pipe.

By the time more heavy rainfall actually knocked the tree into the creek, the line had been removed and the effluent diverted to another pipeline built nearby.

Work crews on a routine facilities check following the Feb. 9 rainstorm that discovered the two upright support columns holding up the pipeline - which bridges Malibu Creek just west of Las Virgenes Road - had been washed away. With more rain forecast, district officials decided to install a pump bypass while an alternative underground pipeline was designed and constructed.

``We diverted the flow and rerouted the pipe around the creek by installing about 1,000 feet of new pipeline,'' said David Lippman, interim facilities administrator overseeing the project.

The work was completed and effluent flow directed into the new pipe Saturday before a sewage spill could occur, he said. Clean-up efforts in conjunction with the California State Parks agency, which owns the land in which the pipeline runs, are all that remain, he added.

The erosion of the sewer line was one in a series of problems that required emergency repairs totaling more than $200,000. Landslides endangered Morrison Tank in Agoura Hills, requiring work crews to complete repairs to the tank itself and to improve drainage in the area.

On the northern end of Las Virgenes Canyon Road, workers replaced a damaged plug that keeps sewage from entering an abandoned sewer line in Ventura County. And workers shored up eroded banks in Malibu Canyon before pipelines there could be washed away.

Last month, the water district's board of directors gave approval for the district to spend whatever necessary to complete emergency repairs. Estimates at that time totaled more than $170,000.

The board will be updated today on repairs, which finally totaled $150,000 to $200,000.

That is approximately the amount spent by the city of Thousand Oaks to repair a ruptured sewer pipeline that dumped an estimated 86 million gallons of untreated waste water into local waterways.

``We were lucky in that the pipeline was not damaged before the work crews got to them,'' said Rufener. ``You know, it is awfully hard to detect these kinds of things before they happen. There's no way really you'd get a warning.