Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
October 18, 2007
4. Water Quality
REGULATION:
Stockton denies illegal polluting; It says ammonia discharges into river not violation - Stockton Record
San Mateo County plant put pollutants in Bay illegally - Inside Bay Area
RUNOFF ISSUES:
City aims to reduce water-runoff fines -
PERCHLORATE:
Rialto asks company for cleanup help; PERCHLORATE: Goodrich Corp. is one of 42 companies that may have contributed to the plume - Riverside Press Enterprise
DEVELOPMENT:
Council wades into waterway setbacks; 30-foot development standard up for vote -
LOS OSOS:
County's Los Osos sewer leader may get new role; Paavo Ogren is likely to be tapped to succeed Noel King as director of county Public Works - San Luis Obispo Tribune
REGULATION:
By Alec Breitler, staff writer
Six
But federal data suggesting
The data were publicly reported last week by environmental group U.S. PIRG in advance of today's 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The group examined Environmental Protection Agency records for thousands of cities and reported that more than 3,600 - about 57 percent - violated the Clean Water Act at least once in 2005.
"It looks bad," said Steve Gittings, deputy director of the city's Municipal Utilities Department.
But the permit that
In 2002, the state issued
In the meantime, officials have finished a $42 million upgrade at the wastewater plant near the
The plant's upgraded equipment uses bacteria to eat up ammonia before treated wastewater is released into the river, Gittings said. As a result, the 2002 permit levels will be met, he said.
Ammonia has long been a problem in the
"Obviously, I was surprised" to see the number of violations noted in the report, said Mark Madison,
An EPA spokeswoman did not respond Wednesday to a request to explain the federal government's numbers.
The questionable data are disconcerting, said Christy Leavitt, who authored the environmentalists' report.
It does not change the report's central claim, she said, that the goals of the Clean Water Act have not been realized and that enforcement of violations has been lax.
Eighty-one facilities nationwide exceeded their permits every month of the year. More than 600 violated permits at least six months of the year.
A range of potentially dangerous substances was discharged up and down the
Still, he said, "We're not just shrugging our shoulders and saying, 'Oh, well.' We've taken all of these exceedences and violations seriously."
Even minor violations add up, said Stockton Delta watchdog Bill Jennings.
"We're still increasing the mass loading of pollutants into these waters," he said.
The U.S. PIRG report does not consider pollution from smaller facilities or farms, which also contribute to fish kills at the Stockton Deep Water Channel. #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071018/A_NEWS/710180332
Inside Bay Area – 10/18/07
By Julia Scott, staff writer
Four
The cities of
The infractions were documented in a recently released report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an environmental organization that obtained information on pollutant discharges across the nation from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Local city wastewater plants and major industrial operations are overseen by the Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board, which acts on the EPA's behalf to limit how much of each material a facility can dump into the Bay or the ocean.
Some materials, such as mercury and cyanide, are considered highly toxic and are subject to ever-shrinking maximum disposal limits and fetch higher fines. The Water Quality Control Board inspects and audits plants once or twice a year.
Authorities say the system works, but only to a point. The ability to clean the wastewater that reaches urban treatment plants from homes and businesses is limited by the technology a plant employs and can usually be avoided with upgrades -- but upgrades are expensive.
"If you look around the Bay Area, most sewage-treatment plants are public agencies. In part, the problem they often face is securing the funds necessary to do the work that needs to be done," said Dyan Whyte, a spokeswoman for the Water Quality Control Board.
"We can only have a treatment plant do as well as it's able to do," Whyte said. By law, the agency can't force a wastewater plant to upgrade its facilities -- it can only impose stronger permit limits and require a plant to show how it is going to improve.
Penalties can certainly act as a catalyst for change, however.
The workers at Burlingame's wastewater treatment plant did all they could to solve their own cyanide mystery after their water tests showed three major violations in 2005.
"Cyanide is normally associated with panning industries and metal plating shops, which the city does not have," said William Cosi, manager of the plant.
To further confuse things, lab workers could barely detect any cyanide coming into the plant -- just inside the system.
After lengthy testing, the plant hypothesized it was an analysis error. They got permission to change their methods for measuring cyanide and haven't had a violation since. They did have to pay a $6,000 fine, however.
Plant Manager Mark Von Aspern said the facility's solids-handling process had failed, causing a decline in the number of microorganisms available to break down organic matter.
"When we have an exceedance, we take it very seriously," said Von Aspen. An upgrade, however, is out of the question for now, he said.
Other than the expense, he said the city of
The Bay Area's water treatment system has come a long way since 1972, when the Clean Water Act mandated toxic effluent limits and brought $1.2 billion in funding for new wastewater treatment plants to the Bay Area, according to scientists at the San Francisco Estuary Institute.
Although the upgraded plants substantially reduced the number of metals leaching into the Bay, "legacy pollutants" such as mercury remain embedded in the sediment.
Whyte said it would be her agency's responsibility to track down human sources of mercury in the coming decades to make sure it won't get into the water in the first place. Wastewater plants will play a part in that mission.
"Mercury is in the Bay Area's environment. It's in the rain, it's in the fish we eat and it's in the rocks surrounding the Bay," she said. "At some point, the plant can only remove so much of anything. That's just how it is with water." #
RUNOFF ISSUES:
City aims to reduce water-runoff fines
By Liset Marquez, staff writer
The fine stems from violations including manure runoff, erosion from trails into the storm drain systems and waterways, erosion runoff from the
The city took an important step when it met Tuesday with water-control officials about the violations.
"We are working with Water Quality Board staff about discussing a supplemental environment project which can be done in lieu of fine or a portion of the fine," said Allred.
On Oct. 1, the city was given an eight-page civil liability complaint for violations of the city's municipal storm sewer system permit.
"
The complaint was based on an August 2006 audit, said Milasol Gaslan, senior water resource control engineer for the regional board.
After receiving the initial notice of violation in February, the City Council compiled a 14-page response.
The city's fine is less than those neighboring cities received, Gaslan said.
"It is our understanding that a number of cities in the Santa Ana Region board have been sent fine notices. Our fine is the smallest," said John Harper, city attorney.
The board is required to do an audit once during the five-year permit cycle before permits are renewed, Gaslan said.
The city was issued a municipal storm sewer system permit in 1990. The last time the permit was renewed was in 2002. During each of those audits, Harper said they never were cited with any violations.
Allred said they were surprised when they received the violation notice in February.
Since then, Allred said the city has taken measures to resolve the problems, which includes implementing rules allowing for a $25,000 fine for storm water runoff or discharge violations.
"The city has taken significant action to enact more stringent pollutant controls and enforcement measures," Allred said.
In June, the council adopted "Manure Management Strategy" in response to the board's concern about manure being washed into storm drain systems and waterways.
Part of the strategy is a mandatory manure collection ordinance and a program to be implemented by 2008.
In May the City Council approved the use and allocated $173,000 in the 2007-08 fiscal year to install Stalok, an alternative trail material for controlling erosion runoff.
And, based on concerns from the water control board about the erosion at
If no agreement is reached, the city can appeal its case at a Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Board hearing in November. #
http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_7208308?IADID=Search-www.sbsun.com-www.sbsun.com
PERCHLORATE:
Rialto asks company for cleanup help; PERCHLORATE: Goodrich Corp. is one of 42 companies that may have contributed to the plume
Riverside Press
By Mary Bender, staff writer
Days after a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Goodrich Corp. against the city of
The letter sent Wednesday to Marshall Larsen, Goodrich's president and chief executive officer, was signed by city council members Winnie Hanson, Ed Scott, Joe Baca Jr. and Deborah Robertson.
In the letter, the City Council requests that Goodrich help
Aquifer Polluted
Rialto City Attorney Bob Owen said Rialto's underground aquifer is "11 miles long and four miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, but we've got a plume of perchlorate sitting smack in the middle of it," he said. "We would like to clean that up and have Goodrich help us."
Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel, explosives and fireworks.
Perchlorate "is contaminating 360 million gallons of water every month that they delay the legal proceedings," Owen said.
On Friday, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville ruled that Goodrich didn't have legal standing in the claim it brought this year against
Goodrich "does not have an interest in uncontaminated waters within
The contamination occurred on a 160-acre industrial site north of Highway 210, in the northern part of
Over the decades, several companies operated on the land.
Testing Rockets
Goodrich operated in
"They were developing and testing solid rocket propellant for small missiles," said Jeffrey Dintzer, legal counsel for Goodrich, headquartered in
Goodrich is one of 42 "potentially responsible parties" named in a federal lawsuit filed by
The company, founded in 1870 in
Goodrich also developed aircraft de-icing systems, pressure suits that allowed pilots to fly at high altitudes, space suits for NASA's Mercury Seven astronauts and wheels and brakes for the space shuttles.
Goodrich quit the tire business and shifted its focus to the aerospace.
The company contends that the city hasn't pressed a current occupant of the site, Kenneth Thompson Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Rialto Concrete Products, to properly clean up a contaminated portion of the land known as the McLaughlin Pit, where fireworks waste was dumped. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_B_bgoodrich18.3e072ed.html
DEVELOPMENT:
Council wades into waterway setbacks; 30-foot development standard up for vote
Grass Valley
By Greg Moberly, staff writer
A proposed waterway setback that will be considered by the Grass Valley City Council next week isn't sitting well with
Supporters, however, counter that the new standard is a balanced approach for developers and environmentalists.
On Tuesday, Grass Valley City Council members will decide whether a minimum 30-foot waterway setback is the best way to begin tackling concerns about development being too close to a city waterway.
"We're trying to come up with something that is fair and balanced," said Councilman Chauncey Poston, who sat on a committee of city officials and community members reviewing the waterways standard.
Earlier this year, City Council members rejected a waterway setback standard up to 100 feet, saying it would be too much of a burden on future development. They sent the issue back to the city subcommittee for further review and they came back with a standard that a city-hired consultant originally recommended.
"It's pretty disappointing," said David Brownstein, president of the Wolf Creek Community Alliance. "Sixty feet would be a reasonable minimum."
The 30-foot setback is not supported by science, Brownstein said. A scientific study of creeks in western
"Herbicides and oil can seep into the creek, if you don't have these buffers," Brownstein said.
The Environmental Protection Agency has identified high amounts of animal feces seeping into
Poston said the proposal will begin making a difference with such water-quality problems.
"There's going to be people who aren't happy with this," he said. "But it's a good step in the right direction.
"It's key to protecting the creek and riparian habitat," he said.
Some residents, such as Harry Stewart, who previously were concerned about how the ordinance might impact their property, expressed cautious optimism.
Stewart owns a property on
"If there's something in there (that I find objectionable), I'll scream bloody murder," Stewart said.
The City Council meets at 7 p.m. at City Hall,
http://www.theunion.com/article/20071018/NEWS/110180198
LOS OSOS:
County's Los Osos sewer leader may get new role; Paavo Ogren is likely to be tapped to succeed Noel King as director of county Public Works
By Bob Cuddy, staff writer
The man who has steered the county through the treacherous waters of the Los Osos sewer project in the past year will lead the Department of Public Works if the
Paavo Ogren would succeed Noel King, who is retiring as Public Works director Dec. 31 after four decades with the county.
King has led the 200-employee department, which has a $30 million annual operating budget, since 2001.
Ogren would earn $160,000 a year.When health insurance, retirement and other benefits are added, the package would reach $242,000.
County Administrative Officer David Edge said Ogren’s “performance in recent years made him a clear successor” to King and would provide a “seamless transition.”
Ogren said one of his biggest challenges will be replacing retiring baby boomers and trying to train and pass institutional knowledge along to new people.
He added that the huge increase in capital projects also will be challenging.
Ogren has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal Poly. He has been with the county off and on since 1988 and has been instrumental in various high-profile projects.
He served as the interim general manager for the Los Osos Community Services District. There, he oversaw the transition from county to local control after voters formed the district in 1998.
He held that post until 2001, when the district board hired a permanent manager.
Among his major county projects were the Lopez Dam seismic remediation project, coordinating negotiations with various agencies on Nacimiento water supply contracts, and reorganizing government agencies in Cayucos.
For the past year, however, Ogren has taken the lead role in the county’s effort to hammer out an agreement that would lead to Los Osos’ getting a sewage collection and treatment system.
He acts as the primary liaison between the Public Works Department and the residents of Los Osos, often attending workshops, meetings and question-and-answer sessions hosted by citizen groups.
Ogren has also given the public and county supervisors weekly televised updates on the Los Osos sewer every Tuesday afternoon.
While reaping considerable praise, he has also encountered fiery criticism, which occasionally leads county board Chairman Jerry Lenthall to chastise speakers during public comment periods.
Julie Tacker—a member of the Los Osos district board and a frequent critic of the county’s takeover of the sewer project — said Wednesday she was supportive of Ogren’s promotion, although she says she believes an engineer should hold the post.
“I haven’t been happy with the (county’s sewer) process, but I don’t believe that’s Paavo’s fault,” Tacker said.
If property owners approve a tax to pay for a sewer, allowing the project to move forward, Ogren would step back from his leadership role as it moves into a more technical phase, Edge said. #
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/169618.html
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