MONEY SOUGHT FOR NEW PIPING.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Sanitation officials, concerned that sewer pipes across the Santa Clara River could break under heavy flow from winter rains, have requested $1.9 million in federal disaster funds to replace and bury them.

The two pipes - one 30 inches in diameter and the other 6 inches - carry raw and partially treated sewage, said Gary Yoshida, head of planning and property management for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

``The bigger one collects wastewater from the surrounding area. It's called a trunk sewer,'' said Mike Selna, head of the engineering department for the sanitation districts. ``It carries about 8 million gallons a day,'' he said.

The smaller one carries the wastewater from a Saugus water reclamation plant near Bouquet Canyon Road and Soledad Canyon Road to a similar facility in Valencia, near The Old Road and Rye Canyon Road, Yoshida said.

In a Sept. 17 letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., asked FEMA Director James Lee Witt to approve funding for the $1.9 million project. Authorities want to complete the work before the rainy season begins.

``Due to erosion of the Santa Clara River stream bed, stemming predominantly from last winter's El Nino storms, a raw sewage line that runs underneath the river has been exposed,'' Boxer's letter states. ``This line urgently needs protection before the river waters begin to rise in the coming winter.''

``The concern is that, if the line is ruptured by high water, raw sewage will be dumped directly into the Pacific Ocean,'' Boxer said. The Santa Clara River flows west through the city and the valley, ultimately running to the sea in Ventura.

The exposed pipes lie about 100 feet downstream from where the Santa Clara River crosses under The Old Road, Yoshida said. The pipes run perpendicular to the riverbed.

Yoshida said the larger pipe is made of a strong clay, and the smaller pipe is made of iron. Both are covered with a protective coat of concrete, he added.

At the reclamation plants, the water is treated and disinfected to render it safe for discharge into the Santa Clara River. Selna said the treated water is safe enough for swimming and for irrigation of crops and landscaping.

Meanwhile, the repair work would consist of digging a tunnel about 35 feet below the existing stream bed and installing new sewage pipes. ``An 800-foot section of both sewers would have to be replaced,'' Yoshida said. The idea is to bury the pipes deep enough that future storm runoff won't erode the riverbed enough to expose them again.

As the pipes now stand, they interfere with the habitat of a fish - the unarmored three-spine stickleback - that the state classifies as endangered. Tunneling and burying the pipes will remedy that situation, Yoshida said.

State officials have estimated that the riverbed eroded about five feet to expose the sewage pipes, and that's why the sanitation districts want to bury them deeper this time, Yoshida added.

Authorities hope FEMA grants approval by month's end, so that work can get under way immediately. Yoshida said there will be no shutdown in sewage service while the new pipes are being installed, and construction could take up to two months.