Monterey One Water pump station in Sand City catches fire, causing no apparent damage.

At around 2:10pm Wednesday, Sept. 18, a contractor for Monterey One Water, which treats sewage from the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas, accidentally started a small fire in the surge tank at M1W’s Seaside Pump Station (which is actually in Sand City) while doing retrofit work. 

Officials don't believe there is any structural damage created by the fire, which was caused by the contractor cutting bolts on a tank hatch, the sparks of which ignited off-gassing methane that had been trapped within it. 

First responders came from Seaside and Sand City police departments and Seaside and Monterey fire departments, and they closed off Sand Dunes Drive while tackling the fire at M1W’s facility at the end of West Bay Street, just a stone’s throw from the beach. 

M1W General Manager Paul Sciuto sent out an email to his board members that evening informing them of the incident, noting he was “thankful that nobody was injured…and that the contractor responded so quickly” by calling 911 and M1W. 

Speaking over the phone this morning, Sept. 19, Sciuto says it was an “all hands on deck” response. He adds that the pump station, M1W’s second-largest after its Salinas Pump Station, is a vital part of the agency’s infrastructure and helps move the Peninsula’s sewage up the coast to M1W’s Regional Treatment Plan in Marina. 

The work being done by the contractor is part of a $35 million retrofit to the agency’s pump stations in Sand City and New Monterey, which Sciuto says is necessary to keep everything functioning properly, in perpetuity—large rotating machinery in a marine environment can break down more quickly over time, he says, and the goal is for that to never happen, lest untreated sewage get discharged into the bay. 

The pump station is still perfectly functional, he says, as the contractor set up a bypass system to work on some of the station’s parts; it’s building the bypass, Sciuto says, that in part makes the project so expensive. “Those pump stations are around 49 years old, with rotating equipment in a marine environment—that’s hard on the equipment,” he says. “We try our best to spend prudently, but also have facilities that operate reliably and are resilient.”

He says the flames were flaring off the tank, and while visible, were small, and never grew out of control. A Seaside Fire ladder truck extended its ladder and ran a hose up it and rained water on the tank, even well after the flames were extinguished, to keep it cool so that any gasses inside didn’t expand. 

Vibeke Norgaard, city manager of Sand City, echoes Sciuto’s observations about the collaborative response. “It was a very quick response, and it was impressive how all the jurisdictions came together and worked together,” she says.