Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 26, 2007
4. Water Quality
Water quality quandary: Opinions mixed on cleaning up
DRINKING WATER OPTIONS:
FPUD explores its options at Red Mountain Reservoir - North County Times
REGULATION:
Price of pollution: $10K a day;
AG WATER QUALITY ISSUES:
Water quality regulations too burdensome; Attorney speaks during Agriculture week with farmers - Woodland Daily Democrat
STORM WATER PLAN:
Murky pollution rules disappoint - San Luis Obispo Tribune
RUNOFF ISSUES:
Water district targets runoff from homes; Effort plans to reduce pollutants in the Malibu Creek Watershed - Ventura County Star
ALGAE ISSUES:
The battle against algae at Lake Hennessey - Napa Valley Register
Water quality quandary: Opinions mixed on cleaning up
By Ned Randolph, staff writer
Viewed as the jewel of this unincorporated retirement community when it was built in the 1960s, the 80-acre lake absorbs the valley's entire watershed, including the motor oil, fertilizer, garbage, cigarette butts, pet waste and silt that get washed into it.
It is the passive recipient of the valley's storm drains, which deliver untreated water directly into San Marcos Creek, down to the lake and eventually the ocean.
Both
Getting listed is the first step toward establishing costly and long-range cleanup plans.
"That's the first step that we as a regional board take to identify a problem," said Chiara Clemente, watershed supervisor for the water quality board. "Then we do an analysis to figure out the sources (of pollution). Then we figure out what pollution level it needs to be at."
Such action is not scheduled by the water board until 2019, which prompted concerned residents to test the lake's water quality themselves. About four residents have been trained by San Diego Coast Keeper, a nonprofit organization, to take water samples and have them analyzed at a
The bulk of the results have not returned from the lab, says San Diego Coast Keeper program director Karen Franz. But other samples taken by residents and sent to a private lab, called EnviroMatrix, reveal a high level of chloroform near Discovery Street Bridge, said Lake San Marcos resident Fran Geneau.
"We're going to keep testing, but we did note a spike in chloroform in that area," she said.
Geneau said she does not know the source of the chloroform, but it generally comes from industry-related waste, such as sanitary landfills and hazardous waste sites, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It attacks the central nervous system and is listed by EPA as a possible cause of human cancer.
Difference of opinion
Some
"Sometimes people forget that we ... are in their neighborhood plan," said
And we are very concerned about stormwater."
Bob Kreis, a member of the Lake San Marcos Community Association and until recently its president, sees things differently. He is one of three
"
The city's creek project, he said, will help control flooding. A series of silt basins ---- a large one at
"Whatever the city does, they will have to do in accordance with the rules not only of the (county) Water Quality Control Board, but also the state, the (Army) Corps of Engineers ---- all of those agencies that get involved," Kreis said, noting many agencies that will have to sign off on the project.
"The city spent a lot of money on the plan for consultants and hydrology studies to know what's going on there. And the city realizes that they have to take care of it."
City's goal
When the city first proposed the creek project several years ago, the plan was to pave the creek bottom. City Manager Paul Malone has said he's glad the city failed to convince regulatory agencies because there is still an opportunity to enhance the natural creek bed.
"I've already made a commitment in the district that it will be a model of stormwater management," he said. "We have an opportunity to do it from day one because we're starting from the ground up."
The city's plan envisions a downtown of restaurants, shops, condos and office buildings along the two miles of the scraggly creek bed between Highway 78 to the east and
Designs presented to the citizens task force show a wide channel and levees to the north and south that would prevent flooding. The creek itself meanders through chaparral and riparian habitat back and forth within a 300 to 400 foot wide channel.
"We view the creek district as an opportunity to create something on many levels, and environmental (quality) is one of them," said Malone. "It's an all-natural creek, which is unique in that regard in
People would not be allowed into the protected channel, but would be able to view it from scenic overlooks, foot bridges, trails and a linear park on south side of the creek.
"I think the fundamental approach here, to organize a downtown district around a wide, all-natural channel, speaks pretty loudly to the environmental issues or what we intend there," he said.
Present conditions
In
"One of the problems that the city faces is that a lot of that property (that borders the creek) is privately owned," said Kreis. "You can drive a pickup truck with a load of trash and unload it there if you want. The city has ordinances against dumping, but they're difficult to enforce."
During heavy rains the illegal waste washes downstream. And sometimes, so does raw sewage.
The Vallecitos Water District three years ago had three separate sewage spills during heavy rains that overflowed manhole covers near
The problem is that some people illegally hook their stormwater drains into the Vallecitos sewer system, which is designed to handle only "domestic" waste from individuals ---- not gutter lines or other outdoor drainage lines, said Bill Rucker, executive director of the Vallecitos Water District. The rains overwhelmed the system and caused the spills, he said.
"There are those individuals that believe those three spills polluted the lake and this agency should be responsible for cleaning up the lake," said Rucker. "There are others that recognize that it has been a sinkhole at the end of 50 square miles of area for six decades."
The lake has absorbed runoff from the region's early chicken ranches, dairies, and now modern emissions, Rucker said.
"In 60 years, I doubt there's been a dozen times that the dam has overflowed. All those concentrates are still in there."
Since the spills, the water district has been trying to add capacity for stormwater drainage, but has been held up by regulatory hurdles, Rucker said. The district is also planning to increase capacity of the storm drains in the creek area, but is waiting on the city's construction schedule.
Leadership role
The spills three years ago started a wider dialogue about protecting the lake.
"I had envisioned a task force sponsored by CDC with the backing and credibility and clout of the organization that ran the lake," Richard said. "The (task force) would be made up of members of the community that had time to put into it."
Things didn't quite work out, Richard said. What ended up happening, he said, was that the task force went off on its own.
Then there were disagreements between the task force and the Lake San Marcos Community Association led by Kreis, Richard said.
"It was hard for them to change each others' opinions. Members of the task force wouldn't communicate with the community association," he said. "You could never get them to walk in lock step --- I lived that on a daily basis."
He said the city assured him that many of the lake pollution issues would be addressed by the creek project, and the city added three seats from
"They talked about improvements they were going to make that would help downstream," Richard said.
"But rightfully so, members of the community question what the intention of city is and they should," he said. "The city has an obligation to sell their plan to those affected by it."
Richard left Citizens Development in November for another job. Little has since been done publicly by the company on water-quality issues.
Victoria Boynton, legal counsel for Citizens Development Corp. and a member of its parent organization, La Jolla Development Group, said that Citizens is "exploring a variety of different avenues to try and improve the quality of the lake."
She would not elaborate, but there is speculation among Lake San Marcos Task Force members that Citizens Development Corp. is meeting with environmental attorneys to discuss legal action.
"I think everybody in the community thinks something should be done," she said. "Everyone is concerned about the quality of water in the lake. I think we're in strategy mode right now, trying to figure out where all the players should be positioned."
Environmental attorney Marco Gonzales, who works with the nonprofit San Diego Coast Keeper, said he expects a gathering of different parties to address the lake's water quality issues as early as this summer.
"I think you're likely to see the underlying owner and stakeholders getting together to question activities of surrounding legislators ---- the school district, the county and city ---- and likely to see an effort to clean up the lake and stop spills," he said.
"I think they realize between Coast Keeper and themselves, there is a synergy to clean up the lake, protect property values, and provide an incentive to get polluters to pay their way." #
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/25/news/inland/22_22_513_24_07.txt
DRINKING WATER OPTIONS:
FPUD explores its options at Red Mountain Reservoir
By Tom Pfingsten, staff writer
FALLBROOK ---- In trying to obey a new Environmental Protection Agency rule, the Fallbrook Public Utility District may begin shining ultraviolet light on some of its water, officials said last week.
District engineers said they hope that zapping water flowing out of Red Mountain Reservoir with ultraviolet rays will fulfill the requirement ---- enacted in January 2006 ---- that water agencies treat drinking water after it has been stored in an open reservoir.
Currently, the water that comes out of Red Mountain Reservoir is only treated with chlorine, which does not meet the rule's requirements, officials said.
The conventional method of treating drinking water to meet the new standard would require building an expensive filtration plant, a project that "could run into the tens of millions of dollars," according to the district's chief engineer, Joe Jackson. The ultraviolet system would still be costly, but only a fraction of a filtration plant's price tag, he said.
Red Mountain Reservoir was originally built as an emergency source of drinking water, and is used to supplement the daily flow of water the district buys from the San Diego County Water Authority.
As an alternative, the district could put a cover on the reservoir, but with a 22-acre surface area and 450 million-gallon capacity, officials said that's out of the question.
So they have turned to ultraviolet technology, which would kill most harmful microbes using a much cheaper facility that could be in place within two years. District General Manager Keith Lewinger said that he recently asked the California Department of Health Services to respond to the proposal by Saturday.
"That will allow us to work it into our budgeting process for the next fiscal year," Lewinger said. "We're hopeful they will respond soon, so that we can budget and move forward with this project."
Redundancy asserted, to no avail
Water distributed from the district's vast Red Mountain Reservoir has never violated quality standards, so local water officials objected to the new rule at first, saying that more treatment of water that is already clean would be redundant.
But the district cannot get around the provision, called the "Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule."
The district has until 2012 to put some sort of system in place,
"But it always pays to be out ahead," he said. "The number of things that can go wrong exceeds the imagination."
"Along with the rule, (the EPA) published a guidance manual for UV disinfection, which sets up the design of the system," he said. "So it's an accepted technology, but it requires specific approval of the (state Department of Health Services)."
The state health department has been assigned to enforce the rule, and has not yet responded to the district's proposal.
State officials did not respond last week to questions concerning the Fallbrook district's proposal or the new water treatment standards.
Lewinger pointed out that, once the district has installed the ultraviolet technology, water delivered from
"It's going to provide extremely disinfected water to our customers," he said.
How it would work
Red Mountain Reservoir is used as a backup to the aqueduct from which the district draws most of its water on a daily basis, said
During peak daytime hours, the district buys water from the San Diego County Water Authority's aqueduct, and simultaneously draws some from Red Mountain. Then, at night, any water taken from the reservoir during the day is replaced.
Water stored in the reservoir is currently treated with chlorine before it is piped to customers, and that would not change if the ultraviolet technology is put in place,
The water would simply be run through a tank and exposed to UV wavelengths that are highly effective at killing multicell pathogens, such as giardiasis and cryptosporidium, which cause intestinal illnesses in humans.
Chlorine would still be added to kill viruses and anything else still alive.
In December, the district's board of directors approved a contract with Santa Monica-based consulting firm McGuire-Malcolm Pirnie to explore the idea of ultraviolet treatment at Red Mountain Reservoir.
In December, Lewinger said that the firm's services would include designing the system if the state approves the ultraviolet technology. In that case, he estimated the district will owe the firm about $300,000.
If the proposal is not approved, he said, the cost for having McGuire-Malcolm Pirnie explore the idea will be around $100,000.
While the final cost has not yet been determined,
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/25/news/inland/fallbrook/22_17_643_24_07.txt
REGULATION:
Price of pollution: $10K a day;
By Andrea Bennett, staff writer
The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board criticized
The program is meant to reduce pollution that ends up in city storm drains and flows into the
The 22-page report stated that unregulated and unmanaged animal manure, waste from industrial and construction sites, and the erosion of horse trails and hillsides in
City Manager Jeff Allred said
The water board gave
Allred said
"We made it clear what we are doing, and we're doing quite a lot in those areas," Allred said.
The city has to develop a tracking system to inspect businesses to ensure there is no pollution of storm water runoff and create a site-specific Urban Runoff Management Plan, the response stated.
Allred said the city still plans to strengthen its codes and develop policies and procedures to meet the various requirements. #
http://www.dailybulletin.com/search/ci_5501597
AG WATER QUALITY ISSUES:
Water quality regulations too burdensome; Attorney speaks during Agriculture week with farmers
Woodland Daily Democrat – 3/25/07
By Jim Smith, staff writer
All the water quality regulations in the world won't do any good if those regulations are so burdensome as to put farmers out of business.
That was the message delivered at the 27th Annual Farm City Festival breakfast in celebration of National Agriculture Week Friday morning hosted by the Yolo County Farm Bureau.
Theresa Dunham, an attorney with the firm of Somach, Simmons & Dunn in Sacramento, who specializes in water quality law, told about 60 farmers, business representatives and elected officials it's becoming harder to farm as a result of new and old anti-pollution requirements.
She has a sympathetic audience in Farm Bureau President Joe Martinez, during the breakfast meeting at the Woodland Hotel, who expressed his frustration with water-quality requirements and other land-use regulations.
"If you can't farm it," he said of the rules under which he works, "why protect it?"
Dunham said her own roots run deep in the region, recalling when she was raised in
The water quality programs, she said, made sense initially as a means of protecting the environment, but improvements in technology coupled with the fees necessary to provide regulatory oversight are threatening the livelihood of farmers.
"I don't think we as policy makers have thought about" the effect of even more stringent water quality legislation, she said. "I know the farmers have."
"We have these programs," she said, "with the cost almost exclusively born by farmers."
"This is a cost totally born by agriculture which has no effect on the quality of food," she emphasized. "It's purely the cost for doing business."
Dunham said she knew of no other state or country with such programs in place. They present tremendous challenges for farmers who are competing against other growers in the
Additionally, state water compliance standards are also very strict.
When initially put in place in 1975, she said about "zero detection" levels of pesticides in farm-water runoff, the technology only measured pollutants at "parts per million." Today, tests can detect contamination at parts per trillion, yet that "zero" contamination level remains.
Dunham said such risk factors need to re-evaluated. Are these strict standards necessary, or even desirable, she questioned. Perhaps so, but maybe such stern standards are unnecessary and unachievable.
Additionally, it may be that factors outside of farming are affecting ground water quality. Simple things, such as water running through plastic piping, temperature, oxygen content and algae could all affect water cleanliness as it runs off the fields.
The "highly engineered" systems in place to deliver water might not be the problem of agriculture, but growers are paying for their effects, she said.
For example, she said,
"It's about viability," Dunham said, the ability to keep a farm economically competitive.
"We do need to be aware of how we impact the environment and how we impact water quality ... We're trying to educate people more on pesticides and how to control runoff ... but we need to step back and ask, what are the long-term goals? What are the long-term impacts."
Farmers, she noted, are asking how they're going to be able to keep doing the same things are now in five or 10 years when the economic situation is even more competitive.
She herself has no answers other than a confidence that the costs to
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/search/ci_5519429
STORM WATER PLAN:
Murky pollution rules disappoint
By David Sneed, staff writer
Despite a lack of specifics, state water officials Friday begrudgingly approved
The board voted 5-2 to allow the county to implement its plans to reduce the amount of pollution that reaches the county’s creeks, lakes and the ocean. The plan is four years in the making and calls for the county to spend $1.64 million in the first year to clean up runoff.
Most of the water board members and many of the environmentalists who spoke at the hearing said they were disappointed in the lack of detail in the county’s plan.
The county is allowed five years to implement the plan, and specifics about pollution control programs will be filled in during that time, said Jill Falcone, who coordinates the county’s runoff management program.
She called the plan a dramatic improvement over the existing rules and urged the board to approve it immediately.
"To delay implementation because someone doesn’t trust the county is inappropriate," she said.
Most of the environmental groups in the county as well as some larger ones from out of the area decried the lack of specifics and urged the county to adopt a runoff plan similar to a stricter one in place in
Steve Shimek, executive director of the Otter Project, based in
"This is a plan to develop a plan," he said.
A majority of the water board members said they were tempted to send the plan back to the county for more work. But they approved it with direction to their staff to update them on its implementation a year from now. #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispotribune/16966301.htm
RUNOFF ISSUES:
Water district targets runoff from homes; Effort plans to reduce pollutants in the Malibu Creek Watershed
By Teresa Rochester, staff writer
People of Agoura Hills and
In fact, 43 percent of homes in the Malibu Creek Watershed overwater.
All that water is running off properties — laced with zinc, copper, nickel and arsenic — and flowing into tributaries that feed Malibu Creek, where people swim, fish and camp and wildlife calls home.
The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board puts limits on the amount of chemicals flowing into the creek, and the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which provides water service to the communities, has launched a free program to help residents curb runoff.
A district employee can be dispatched to a customer's home for an inspection. A detailed list of any problems and recommended solutions is left with the customer. The customer can then make all or some of the repairs and present his or her receipts to the district for refunds of up to $500. A follow-up inspection is also conducted, and water use and runoff are monitored for two years.
The program, funded by a grant from Proposition 13, passed in 2000, has been slow to get off the ground. The district's goal is to have 100 participants in the Malibu Creek Runoff Reduction Project by December.
"We're doing a full court press to advertise it," said Randal Orton, the district's acting director of resource conservation and public outreach.
Orton and the district have turned to the cities they serve for help in getting the word out.
Officials with the city of
In
The city also provided the district with a contact list for all of the homeowner associations' presidents, and an article about the program will appear in the city's next newsletter, Hughes said.
He also bought a smart timer for his regular sprinklers, which shuts off the system when it rains. Some of the brush on his property was cut back, and some sprinkler heads were replaced.
"It's just a wonderful idea,"
Thanks to technology, the district can pinpoint where runoff is happening. Officials have discovered that most of the older neighborhoods have less runoff, while newer neighborhoods, where landscapers working for homeowners associations may be too enthusiastic with watering common areas, have more offenders.
Overall, the district has found that one in four homes has runoff issues. The biggest cause is irrigation.
The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board is happy with the district's plan. Fran Diamond, the board's chair, said the Malibu Creek Watershed is one of the region's most important and beautiful water bodies.
"It's very important," Diamond said, "and it's a very good thing they are doing."
Orton said he believes the program will be a success.
"The cities are highly motivated to solve this at the source," he said. "It all comes down to the residents." #
http://www1.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_5442013,00.html
ALGAE ISSUES:
The battle against algae at Lake Hennessey
By Julissa McKinnon, staff writer
As the days grow longer and temperatures rise, green goo is multiplying somewhere in the shallower depths of
While some algae growth is inevitable, reservoir regulators are hoping the bloom won't be big enough to warrant any algae-killing chemical treatments this year.
Last year no algae combatants were needed because the aquatic plant didn't reach dangerous levels, according to Phil Brun, general manager of the city's water division.
Besides sparing the drinking water another round of chemicals, the low algae count was a boon to the city for other reasons.
Last year the water division was caught in a bind after a local environmental group, Earth Defense for the Environment Now, contested the health and safety of the use of copper sulfate -- the city's tried-and-true algaecide for Hennessey.
Like other heavy-impact pollutants, copper accumulates in higher and higher concentrations as it moves up the food chain, and eventually can lead to declines in fish and frog populations, according to several scientific studies.
In response to the environmentalists' concerns, the city's water officials started looking into an alternative algae-killer, PAK-27 -- a new chemical with potentially less environmental impacts, according to Brun.
But
"We have to hire experts, of course," Malan said. "Any kind of chemical in the watershed can be a problem but if we're going to protest anything we have to have experts to tell us what the impacts are."
She added that reviewing the city's environmental impact studies about PAK-27, which would satisfy the California Environmental Quality Act, could be a starting point to investigate the new algaecide, if and when the city files them.
"They didn't file CEQA documents on the copper sulfate," Malan said, pointing to the basis on which
Last year, when the city went to file a negative declaration for copper sulfate -- a document that would excuse them from conducting a full environmental impact study by stating that copper sulfate has little to no environmental impact --
It has yet to be determined what the city's solution will be if and when Hennessey's algae gets to be too much.
In the past,
A city-funded survey of the Lake Hennessey and Lake Milliken watersheds has identified vineyard run-off, particularly fertilizers and pesticides, as well as cattle grazing as likely sources of excess nutrients that are trickling into the lake and triggering algae growth.
Brun said trying to change existing land use practices can spark the timeless and often fruitless tug-of-war between private property owners and government agencies, but this isn't always the case.
So far Brun said the city's algae-fighting solution would be PAK-27 -- a sodium carbonate peroxyhydrate that breaks down into hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate when it hits water. Hydrogen peroxide has a half-life of less than eight hours in water, according to fact sheets from the California State Water Resources Control Board, which has permitted the use of the algaecide.
When EDEN questioned the city's ability to use PAK-27, Brun replied in an e-mail: "My understanding is that a CEQA analysis is not required for applications that are covered by the General Permit," adding that he believes PAK-27 was added to the city's permit in June 2006 for the discharge of aquatic pesticides for aquatic weed control in the lake.
Though
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/03/24/news/local/iq_3879433.txt
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