EDITORIAL:Report: nothing to hold your nose at

Ah, the sweet smell of success.

The news this week that Los Angeles Public Works officials recommend that their City Council keep sewer maintenance holes and tunnel shaft sites out of Burbank as they build a sewer project was a welcome victory for local neighborhoods.

Recommendations in Los Angeles' final draft of the environmental review of the Glendale-Burbank Sewer Interceptor Project offered key concessions to Burbank residents and to officials from Glendale and Burbank. For months local city officials and residents have worried that if a sewer alignment ran north of the Ventura (134) Freeway, as was an option — cutting through Riverside Drive and Bob Hope Drive, and Valley Heart Drive and Reese Place — the area's quality of life would be affected.

In the report, Los Angeles officials recommended an alignment that would run underneath Forest Lawn Drive, north to Pass Avenue and west under Riverside Drive. This alignment would eliminate the need for tunnel-shaft sites in Burbank and the nearby recreation area, known as the Pollywog. The report even recommends measures to lessen vibration and noise during construction.

If the Los Angeles City Council signs off on the recommendations, as expected next month, residents and business owners in Burbank and Glendale will be able to breathe easier, knowing they won't be forced to endure the stench of venting air from treatment center sewer pipes and the din, dust and environmental hazards of constructing those pipes.

The new alignment strikes a sensible balance.

Options to build north and south of the Ventura (134) Freeway sparked considerable, and justified, opposition from residents.

Residents, business owners and Burbank and Glendale officials were rightly concerned about the effects of a sewer alignment option that ran north of the freeway. But so were Toluca Lake residents, who were equally concerned about the effects of a southern alignment option, which would have had similar effects on their quality of life.

At some point, as troubling as a nearby sewer project is, we have to consider the possibility that in 15 years, if no sewer project is built, the overflow of millions of gallons of sewage may be a worse problem for everyone. If we're going to live and work in and near a metropolis, this project seems a necessary evil.