Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 13, 2007
4. Water Quality
WASTEWATER RECYCLING:
SR, Geysers plan; Advances Bankruptcy court ratifies contract with city, Calpine for pipeline project to generate electricity from wastewater - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
REGULATION:
Boeing pays $471,000 pollution fine; Penalties imposed for content of Field Lab runoff -
WASTEWATER RECYCLING:
SR, Geysers plan; Advances Bankruptcy court ratifies contract with city, Calpine for pipeline project to generate electricity from wastewater
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 9/13/07
By Mike McCoy, staff writer
A federal bankruptcy court has cleared the way for
"This is a big deal," Deputy City Manager Greg Scoles said of the decision by a bankruptcy court in
Calpine, one of the nation's largest power generators, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005 and is in the midst of reorganizing.
The Geysers, the world's largest wastewater-to-electricity project, is among Calpine's most profitable assets. Company officials plan to invest more than $200 million over the next five years to bolster productivity from the steam fields.
Of that, $40 million is earmarked to drill more injection wells and expand a network of distribution pipes at the steam fields to handle increased wastewater flows from the city's four-year-old pipeline, which will increase 30 percent.
Calpine officials say the 4 billion gallons of wastewater received annually from the city and injected deep underground produces enough steam to generate 68 megawatts of energy, enough to power 68,000 homes.
They expect the power output to jump to 85 megawatts, enough electricity to power all the homes in
Scoles said the deal will prove financially and environmentally beneficial for the city, its ratepayers and
"This deal will help us avoid a lot of costs, gain a lot of environmental benefits and protect potable water," he said.
Efforts to contact Calpine officials were unsuccessful.
Scoles said shipping more effluent to The Geysers would reduce the city's discharges into the environmentally sensitive Laguna de
Prior to The Geysers project, the city discharged about 4 billion gallons a year into the Laguna. Based on flows the past two years, Scoles said "we probably wouldn't have had any flow in the Laguna" had the new Calpine agreement been in effect.
Scoles said reduced flows could help
If the discharge point can remain in the Laguna, Scoles said the city could save the $120 million to $200 million that it would cost to shift to a new location and build two storage reservoirs to accommodate other disposal options.
Scoles said a plan under consideration to spend $80 million to extend a network of wastewater distribution pipelines into
Scoles said the goal of that program, under a law approved Tuesday by the City Council, is to require developers of future retail, industrial and large condominium projects in those areas to use tertiary-treated wastewater in place of potable water for outdoor irrigation, industrial processing and cleaning purposes.
"That will help protect our potable water," said Scoles, alluding to growing concerns about the availability of water, particularly from the
Under the agreement with Calpine, which was reached last month and ratified Tuesday by the bankruptcy court, Scoles said the city will soon boost its wastewater deliveries from 11 million gallons a day, or 4 billion gallons a year, to 12.6 million gallons a day.
Within 20 years, Scoles said, the amount delivered through a 40-mile pipeline completed in 2003 will increase to more than 15 million gallons a day, or 5.5 billion gallons annually. #
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070913/NEWS/709130343/1033/NEWS01
REGULATION:
Boeing pays $471,000 pollution fine; Penalties imposed for content of Field Lab runoff
By Kathleen Wilson, staff writer
The Boeing Co. has paid $471,000 for violating pollution standards at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory south of
The penalties were imposed for exceeding limits of chromium, dioxin, lead, mercury and other pollutants in wastewater and storm-water runoff over a period of nearly 18 months ending early last year.
"This nearly half-million dollar penalty is a clear statement that violations of
A Boeing spokeswoman said the company paid the fines as calculated but planned to work with the water board to determine "reasonable and effective" ways to comply with requirements in the future.
"We've always maintained they were inappropriately applied and basically unachievable," spokeswoman Blythe Jameson said Wednesday.
She said the company has made every effort to reach the levels set out in a permit issued by the water quality board. The task was exacerbated because a 2005 wildfire burned across 2,000 acres of the 2,850-acre site, she said.
The fines were well above the minimum penalty of $228,000. But Smith called them appropriate for the 79 violations that occurred from fall 2004 to January 2006 in runoff going into Bell Creek, a tributary of the
The aerospace company purchased the former rocket engine and nuclear test site in 1996. The site has been the object of a massive cleanup effort for more than a decade.
Most of the fines — about $235,000 — will be deposited in an account used for environmental cleanups around the state.
An additional $200,000 will pay for a study to determine how trace metals are transported from watersheds to estuaries and assessing their effect on water quality, habitat and aquatic life. The rest will go toward restoration of kelp beds in the
Francine Diamond, chairwoman of the water board, said the action shows the agency is meeting its responsibility of enforcing the federal Clean Water Act.
"It is absolutely critical that water quality laws are rigorously followed," she said. #
http://search2.venturacountystar.com/
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