Environmentalists and residents lost their initial bid to get rid of a sewer line that runs below the Ellwood butterfly habitat and Devereux Creek.

Santa Barbara Shores resident Cynthia Brock and Ellwood environmentalist Chris Lange appealed to the Goleta City Council on Tuesday to deny Goleta West Sanitary District’s permit application to construct a pipeline that would serve the nearby Comstock Homes development.

The roughly 1,600-foot segment of pipe, called the Devereux Creek Trunkline, is part of the district’s Hollister Avenue Interceptor Replacement Project, which is planned to service the development.

Brock, Lange, neighbors and supporters charged that “the project as approved is not the most environmentally protective.” They cited inconsistencies with the city’s General Plan and inadequacies within the environmental document.

“Current environmental standards would never allow a sewer line to be installed in such an environmentally sensitive area,” said Brad Weals, speaking for the Santa Barbara Shores Homeowners Association.

Appeal backers also complained about the stench that rises from the manholes connected to the pipe in the butterfly zone, and others pointed out that the practice of clearing the area around line of foliage was inconsistent with trying to maintain a nature preserve.

The supporters of the appeal also urged the council to consider a lift station that would pump sewage away from the environmentally sensitive area into the Hollister Avenue trunkline, instead of allowing it to drain by gravity through the Devereux Creek pipe. There is already a site designated for a lift station and Comstock Homes has posted the bond for it.

While local residents Ed Easton and Marian Cohen said the lift station was an environmentally superior way to move sewage, both Mark Nation, general manager of the sanitary district, and Mayor Jean Blois said that the lift station was an inferior option.

Ultimately, however, the district won out on the grounds that the district, not the city, had the authority to decide whether the pipe should be constructed in the area.

“If (the appellants) would like the Devereux Creek line abandoned — they’d like us not to use it any more for environmental reasons, for sewer service reasons, for any other reasons that they may have, they have a forum for that request. The forum is the Goleta West Sanitary District Board,” said Steve Amerikaner of the law firm Hatch & Parent, and legal counsel for GWSD.

The council unanimously voted to deny the appeal, but directed staff to begin looking into the process of decommissioning that segment of the pipeline in the future.

“There’s really nothing that this council can do,” Blois said. “But in the future we would be very happy to see Goleta West decommission (the pipeline).”

The fight isn’t over yet for the appellants: the segment of pipeline in question falls within the Coastal Zone, under the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission. Brock and Lange anticipate a hearing by the CCC on the matter, and are considering talks with GWSD.