June 21, 2001

By Spencer Soper
Copyright North County Times

A Rancho Santa Fe attorney pleaded guilty in Superior Court on Wednesday to illegally connecting to a sewer line, which caused thousands of dollars in damage and polluted a creek that flows into San Elijo Lagoon.

David Peters, 42, was ordered to pay $93,000 in fines and damages, sentenced to three years probation, and must do 200 hours of volunteer work, officials with the district attorney's office said.

The charges will be forwarded to the state bar association, which will determine if it could affect his standing as an attorney, Deputy District Attorney Evan Miller said.

Peters was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

Peters is a partner in the Encinitas-based firm of Peters & Freeman, which specializes in representing homeowner associations.

According to the charges, Peters dug a 400-foot-long trench from his Rambla De Las Flores home, across a creek, to illegally tie into a Cardiff Sanitation District sewer line. Miller said it was a shoddy connection and caused sewage to pollute the creek.

As part of Peters' guilty plea, he is required to pay the Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Fish & Game and the county Department of Land Use for their investigations, Miller said.

Peters was also ordered to pay the Cardiff Sanitation District for damages to the sewer line and San Diego Gas & Electric for unrelated damages to power connections, Miller said.

Encinitas public works director Lin Wurbs said the illegal sewer hook-up caused about $20,000 in damages.

"It completely destroyed the integrity of our pipe," Wurbs said. "We want that part of the line replaced so we don't have ground water infiltration and sewage leaking into the creek."

Besides contaminating the creek with sewage, the poor connection allowed ground water to seep into the sewer line, Wurbs said. That meant the San Elijo sewage treatment plant was treating water it otherwise would not have to treat, she said.

Specifically, Peters pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of vandalism, unlawful discharge into a sewer, water pollution and diversion of a natural stream bed.

Mervin Hee, a patrol supervisor with the state Department of Fish & Game, said digging a trench across a creek stirs up silt and interrupts the water flow, which is harmful to fish.

The creek the illegal sewer line crossed empties into San Elijo Lagoon.

Kevin Johnson, president of the San Elijo Lagoon Conservancy, said that bacteria counts creep up in the lagoon every once in a while, which could be due to illegal sewer connections. But it is not a "voluminous problem," he said.