Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 28, 2007
4. Water Quality
SALT ISSUES:
Water agency seeks pipe approval; The project is part of a larger 'brine line' effort to lower salinity for Calleguas customers -
GROUNDWATER CLEANUP:
Board orders cleanup; Water regulators pushing owners to tend to site while Sen. Florez seeks action from attorney general - Bakersfield Californian
PERCHLORATE:
LOS OSOS:
Los Osos residents must come up with $127 million for wastewater treatment plant; Los Osos sewer price: $25,000-plus per home - San Luis Obispo
SALT ISSUES:
Water agency seeks pipe approval; The project is part of a larger 'brine line' effort to lower salinity for Calleguas customers
By Gregory W. Griggs, staff writer
Hoping to reduce its dependence on water from Northern California, the Calleguas Municipal Water District is seeking approval for the next phase of a 32-mile "brine line" that will carry salt discharges from treatment plants in eastern Ventura County and thereby improve the quality of groundwater supplies used by farmers.
As part of the project's environmental impact study, the water district has scheduled a public meeting Wednesday about a section of the pipeline that would run along
The brine line will transport salt extracted from groundwater, demineralization facilities and treatment plants in the eastern and southern parts of the county and reuse it for coastal wetlands restoration and to irrigate crops not sensitive to salt, such as sod. Excess water would be pumped to the ocean at the Hueneme terminus.
When completed in four to six years, the $100-million brine line project, formally known as the Calleguas Regional Salinity Management Program, will help reduce the high salt content within the Calleguas watershed, officials said. Currently, sensitive crops absorb the salt and dry out, causing agricultural production to drop.
"It's both about water supply and water quality," said Eric Bergh, manager of resources for the water district. "We have an area that's continuing to grow. . . . With that increased population comes rising water demands and continued uncertainty with imported water supplies."
Calleguas imports 100% of its water from the California Water Project and resells it to 23 public and private water agencies throughout the county, most of which mix it with groundwater. The blended water is delivered to about 575,000 customers in
Federal standards ensure that any water that reaches the Pacific will not harm water quality, Bergh said.
As planned, water pumped to the ocean would have 5,000 to 8,000 parts per million of chlorine, less than a quarter of the 35,000 ppm average for seawater.
There should be sufficient demand for water from the pipeline, Bergh said, given that county farmers have for years pumped groundwater to the point that seawater has flowed into the aquifer to replace it.
Public comments will be accepted until Sept. 10 on a draft environmental report prepared on the outfall portion of the project.
The draft report, and more information about the Calleguas brine line project, may be viewed on the district website: www.calleguas.com. #
GROUNDWATER CLEANUP:
Board orders cleanup; Water regulators pushing owners to tend to site while Sen. Florez seeks action from attorney general
Bakersfield
By Stacy Shepard, staff writer
Polluted groundwater beneath the
The California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a formal order late last week demanding the refinery's current and past owners clean up contaminated soil and groundwater at the site.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who jumped on the issue after being alerted by a Californian story, wasn't taking any chances. He tried to get the state attorney general on the case.
Florez sent a letter Monday to Attorney General Jerry Brown asking him to take legal action against Shell, the oil company primarily responsible for cleaning up the contamination.
In the letter, Florez said the water board had taken too long to make Shell clean up the oil, gasoline, diesel, benzene and MTBE in the ground. He called the contamination a "serious health and safety concern."
And, he said, the water board "has a history of inaction and has demonstrated an unwillingness to require the necessary action in this instance."
The water board's recent cleanup order is the first formal action it has taken to address past contamination at the refinery going back to the mid-1980s. It includes 55 required actions over various lengths of time.
In June the board ordered current refinery owner Big West of California, a subsidiary of Flying J, to clean up more recent pollution.
Groundwater and soil beneath the
The resulting plume comes close to two public drinking supplies including a city well and the
A recent investigation by The Californian found that instead of issuing formal enforcement orders, the water board has allowed the refinery's various owners to voluntarily clean up the messes. Some remediation has occurred but in the past two years, cleanup has nearly come to a halt -- with a lot left to do.
"That's the kind of action we've been waiting for," Tom Frantz, chairman of Association of Irritated Residents, a local environmental group, said of the new cleanup order. "A (formal) order is a pretty rare thing coming from the water board."
Loren Harlow, one of the board's assistant executive officers, said the attorney general could act "but I think our order will clearly address the cleanup and remediation of that site."
He said the order was not in response to The Californian's story of last week or Florez's pressure. It reflected a new, more forceful approach by the board in the last year, he said.
Gareth Lacy, Brown's press secretary, said it was too soon to comment on whether Brown will pursue a case against Shell.
"The next step is to start asking the water board questions," Lacy said. "That will happen as soon as possible."
Shell spokesman Stan Mays also said it's too early to comment.
"Shell remans committed to its environmental responsibility," Mays said, "and will mitigate issues for which it is responsible."
In the past, contamination beneath the refinery has migrated to under neighboring properties and contaminated some wells.
Water board officials said cleanup operations by Shell and previous owners helped to contain the plume beneath the refinery.
However, the recent cleanup order requests further studies to address off-site migration.
Big West bought the refinery from Shell in 2005. Under terms of the sale, Shell retained responsibility for past contamination at the facility. The facility was previously owned jointly by Texaco and Shell under the name Equilon, and solely by Texaco before that.
When Shell sold the facility in 2005, it shut down one of the most effective cleanup systems. The company said it had to build a new power source for the system. It was allowed to set its own deadlines for reactivation and has missed all three. Shell says that's due to factors outside its control. #
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/222664.html
PERCHLORATE:
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
After a lengthy meeting Monday that focused on the city's efforts to clean up water contamination, city officials announced two significant meetings later in the week.
Mayor Grace Vargas and Councilwoman Winnie Hanson on Wednesday will meet with representatives from the Governor's Office to ask for money to help the city cope with perchlorate contamination.
Councilman Ed Scott and city lawyers will meet the next day with officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to see what it can do to help with the cleanup.
"We're going to get much more aggressive," Scott said.
The Monday meeting lasted most of the day, and included Scott and Hanson - both members of the City Council's perchlorate subcommittee - some of its lawyers, its
Perchlorate, which
Perchlorate flowing from industrial sites on the city's north end is making its way into
It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to cleanup.
Monday's meeting came at a pivotal time during the city's efforts to get the contaminated drinking water cleaned.
Earlier this month, a judge in
The hearings were supposed to have started last week.
The companies filed lawsuits in Los Angeles County Superior Court laying out why they thought the state process was biased against them.
For one, they pointed to communications the State Water Resources Control Board had with officials leading the case against them.
The next hearing on whether the state proceedings can move forward won't be until October.
A federal lawsuit against those three companies and dozens of other parties accused of contaminating the water is tentatively scheduled for October 2008.
Meanwhile, the cost of pursuing the suspected polluters continues to rise.
It is not clear exactly how much has been spent, but about two months ago, City Attorney Bob Owen put the number at $18 million.
That includes the cost of treatment, paying lawyers, and investigating the contamination.
In April, the council asked for an audit to determine the true cost.
That audit is not yet complete.
As the cost - largely paid for by a fee
The meeting with the EPA in
"We want to see work continue at the site. ... We are concerned with delays in getting additional work done at the site," said Wayne Praskins, a Superfund project manager for EPA, who will be at the meeting Thursday.
The delay in the state hearings on perchlorate, discovered in
At a rally last week, the Riverside-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice named the three companies "Public Enemy No. 1."
CCAEJ also called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown and other elected officials to make the situation a priority.
"We demand you step forward and treat these corporate eco terrorist with the same zeal as we would treat any other terrorists," CCAEJ's executive director, Penny Newman, wrote in a letter to the officials. #
http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6737110
LOS OSOS:
Los Osos residents must come up with $127 million for wastewater treatment plant; Los Osos sewer price: $25,000-plus per home
San Luis Obispo
By Sona Patel, staff writer
Homeowners in most of Los Osos could pay up to $25,000 in property taxes for a sewer, according to a county engineer’s report that details how much it would cost to build a wastewater collection and treatment system in the town.
That’s on top of monthly bills between $100 and $275 that were estimated in a separate report last week.
The most recent report — which the
Based on those figures, county officials calculated that they must collect $127 million from developed properties in most of Los Osos.
If supervisors approve the engineer’s report today, it would establish that amount as the total assessment that could be collected.
While the total breaks down to about $25,000 per single-family home, most homeowners would pay more than that because few would pay the full assessment up front. Interest and administrative costs — which have not been determined— typically add to those charges.
Owners of mobile homes would pay, on average, about half as much as owners of single-family homes.
Owners of commercial properties would pay much more, depending on square footage.
Annual levies on property tax bills would depend on bond-financing terms, which are typically over 30 years, according to
Property owners could pay lower assessments than those outlined in the report if the county is successful in securing state and federal grants.
The sewer is expected to cost about $154 million. But county officials are including only developed parcels in this assessment, which the town’s property owners will be asked to approve in ballots expected in local mailboxes next week.
Property owners representing a majority of Los Osos’ assessed valuations must approve the tax in order for the county to proceed with the sewer. Votes are weighted according to each property owners’ assessment.
Assessment ballots will be accepted at the
The county took over the sewer project under a plan brokered by Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, and approved by the state Legislature last year.
How to build a sewer and where to construct a wastewater treatment plant has been the center of political debate for more than three decades in the town of about 14,000.Most households treat waste in septic tanks.
State water quality regulators blame those septic systems for nitrate pollution in the town’s groundwater and
The Los Osos Community Services District had just broken ground on a more than $100 million sewer that included a wastewater treatment plant at the so-called Tri-W parcel when a recall election in September 2005 overthrew a majority of the agency’s board.
That parcel in the middle of town once slated for a treatment plant was at the heart of the project’s failure, with many residents upset that the sewer plant was so close to the library and community center.
Attempts by the new district board to build a sewer were weakened after the agency filed for federal bankruptcy protection in August 2005 to deal with more than $40 million in debts, most of which are tied to the failure to build a plant at Tri-W.
The latest cost adds to the sewer-related financial burden for a majority of Los Osos property owners.
Many of the same property owners who will be asked to vote for the county’s assessment have been paying since 2002 for a bond that financed the design and land purchases for the district’s now-scrapped project.
Property owners approved that levy in a May 2001 mail-in election. Since then, some landowners paid their full assessment — in some cases, as much as several thousand dollars up front—while most are paying about $250 annually over 30 years on their property tax bills.
Hundreds of those property owners have since filed individual claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in hopes of getting their money back.
Services district board President Chuck Cesena believed the costs in today’s report might be lower than the county’s estimates.
“I think they’re trying to give us the worst of the bad news now,” he said.
His main concern about the assessment stems from property owners not knowing what kind of project they’re paying for before they vote — a common concern among critics of the county’s efforts to build a sewer.
Still,
“I’d rather partner with the county than the water board,” he said. “I don’t think we have a choice but to vote yes on the (assessment).”
Board member Julie Tacker said the assessment was “an awful lot of money.”
“I’m not clear how the county will make it clear to (the property owners) that this is just the first step and that there will be (other) rates and charges,” Tacker said.
Today’s report gave her some relief on what she thinks is a slight indication that the county isn’t looking at Tri-W — off Los Osos Valley Road and Palisades Avenue — as the site for a treatment plant.
Previous reports estimated costs for a project with a plant at the Tri-Wsite to be between $150 million to $153 million, based on contractor bids, according to Paavo Ogren, the county’s deputy director of public works. #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/127710.html
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