Sewage Spill Closes Southland Beaches

LOS ANGELES, CA — Several beaches across the Southland were closed on New Years Day after a massive amount of untreated sewage was released into the Dominguez Channel, public health officials announced.

The spill ranged from 2 million to 4 million gallons to as high has 6 million gallons, the Los Angeles Public Health Department said in a statement on Friday.

All Los Angeles County beaches up to and including Rancho Palos Verdes Beach were closed. Seal Beach was also closed, officials said.

"The affected ocean water area will remain closed to swimming, surfing, and diving until the results of follow-up water quality monitoring meet acceptable standards," officials wrote in a statement.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn called for a full investigation into how the sewage spill occurred.

"A sewage spill of this magnitude is dangerous and unacceptable and we need to understand what happened," Hahn wrote in a statement released Friday. "The recent storm undoubtedly contributed to the spill but we need infrastructure that doesn't fail when it rains. I am calling on L.A. County Sanitation Districts to do a full investigation into the cause of the spill and whether aging or faulty infrastructure was involved."

Sanitation crews were working in Los Angeles and Long Beach to clean up the immediately impacted areas, health officials said.

No other information was immediately available.