Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 4, 2007
4. Water Quality
GROUNDWATER CLEAN-UP:
Rialto eyeing Superfund list - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Plans for Piru sewage facility could change; Builders' bids come in higher than expected - Ventura County Star
WASTEWATER:
Treated wastewater to be topic at water board meeting - Ventura County Star
DREDGING ISSUES:
Dredging Toxics Report Still Not In -
GROUNDWATER CLEAN-UP:
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
RIALTO - A portion of the city that has become polluted by industrial chemicals may take a step closer to becoming a Superfund cleanup site if the council votes tonight to move in that direction.
The move has been a decade in the making. More than $20 million has been spent on trying to figure out the extent of the pollution.
The vote isn't the final step in the city's path to become a cleanup site. The federal Environmental Protection Agency makes the final decision on whether
Superfund is the federal government's hazardous waste cleanup program.
"I think it's a long time coming that we looked for other alternatives to address the perchlorate issue," said Councilman Joe Baca Jr., who said he wants the city to spend less on lawyers and work more closely with other water purveyors facing the contamination.
"We've agreed to get more involved," said Wayne Praskins, the EPA's Superfund project manager who was expected to attend tonight's council meeting at City Hall.
Perchlorate, a chemical used to produce explosives like rocket fuel and fireworks, can be harmful to humans by interfering with the thyroid gland. Perchlorate and the cleaning solvent trichloroethylene contaminated the water and are flowing from industrial sites in northern
The EPA has not decided whether it will declare the area a Superfund site, and it has not decided on the boundaries for a potential site.
The fall of 2008 is the earliest a decision would come, Praskins said.
Whatever the EPA decides, he said EPA officials will meet with some of the suspected polluters this month to request they do additional work at the site.
Until recently,
They also said the EPA moves too slowly.
Council members Ed Scott and Winnie Hanson, members of the council's perchlorate subcommittee, asked the council to take up the resolution.
Anthony "Butch" Araiza, the general manager of the
"Why couldn't we have done that years ago?" he said. #
Plans for Piru sewage facility could change; Builders' bids come in higher than expected
By Tony Biasotti, staff writer
The new sewage plant planned for Piru could go back to the drawing board, after the bids to build it came in at nearly double what the
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors will be asked today to reject all five bids on the project and send it back to the Public Works Agency to be redesigned. Contractors' bids on the project ranged from $17 million to $19.2 million, far above the county's estimate of $9.9 million.
If the board agrees, the county will try to design a new plant that will cost about $12 million. That would keep Piru residents' sewer bills about $80 a month, up from their current level of $57 a month, said Reddy Pakala, the county's director of water and sanitation.
The county must have a new plant up and running by February 2009, or by February 2010 if the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board grants a one-year extension. The regional board has the power to fine the county if it is still using the old plant, which releases pollutants into the
If the county redesigns the project and asks for new bids, the plant will probably be finished around the end of 2009, Pakala said.
The first estimates were so high in part because the cost of materials is constantly rising, he said. The county's estimate also called for the new plant to be built where the existing one is now, and that turned out to be more expensive than anticipated.
"What we found out is the treatment plant we designed with existing land was very difficult to construct," Pakala said. "So, what we are considering is looking into buying land next door, so we can keep the existing plant operating while constructing a new plant. We believe that will keep the cost lower."
The county might also revisit its decision to use a filtering technology called membrane bioreactors. It's more expensive than some other choices, but it uses less land and releases cleaner water.
It may turn out that buying more land and using a different method will be cheaper, Pakala said.
The sewage treatment plant is on 1.2 acres, and the county could buy another 3 acres. It is one of the smaller plants in the county, processing about 240,000 gallons of sewage per day. The new plant would have a capacity of 500,000 gallons per day. #
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/dec/04/plans-for-piru-sewage-facility-could-change-bids/
WASTEWATER:
Treated wastewater to be topic at water board meeting
The California Regional Water Quality Control Board is expected to hear arguments Thursday regarding the city of
The city has been dumping water into the marshland for more than 50 years, and it contends the water helps the health of the ecosystem. Some environmental groups agree, saying the water helps provide habitat for birds and various endangered species.
However, others say it harms the estuary or does no benefit and the water should be pumped upstream or into the ocean.
If the city is required to pump the water into the ocean, new infrastructure could cost at least $50 million.
A public workshop will be held at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California,
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/dec/04/treated-wastewater-to-be-topic-at-water-board/
DREDGING ISSUES:
Dredging Toxics Report Still Not In
By Riya Bhattacharjee, staff writer
The City Council continued the discussion on the
Councilmember Darryl Moore told the Planet that he had asked the Public Works Department to provide a more comprehensive report about the toxicology tests.
The city’s Public Works Department dredged the lagoon at the north end of the
The incident drew criticism from city officials and local environmentalists—including the Sierra Club—because the spoils were discarded on a popular bird-watching site and adjacent to one of the main wading-bird foraging spots.
City officials provided the state water board with a full report of the dredging on Nov. 8 and stopped the project after inquiries from the community and the Planet.
The lagoon is dredged every 15 years to clear out the debris around the tidal tubes and clean out the Strawberry Creek storm drain to improve circulation. At the time the city last conducted the dredging in 1992, the spoils were barged out and deposited near
The city report states that if the “Strawberry storm drain overflow is not cleaned and maintained, there is added chance of flooding occurring in West Berkeley during heavy rains.”
According to the report prepared by public works for the City Council, the project had originally been scheduled for summer, but fell behind schedule.
The report blamed the department’s engineering division’s failure to inform the regulatory agencies, the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department officials and the Public Works director on its “quest to expedite the work before the rainy season.”
Preliminary results for toxins on spoil samples indicated a high but not hazardous lead level.
W.R. Forde, the contractor hired by the city to dredge the lagoon, was responsible for taking samples of the sediment from the tidal tubes and the spoils to determine whether any contaminants were present in order to identify where the spoils could be disposed.
According to the report, the samples were sent to Analytical Sciences testing laboratory in
“Since the soil is contaminated with lead and hydrocarbons, we have to take it to a Class 2 waste disposal site in
The report states that the city would have to build a completely water-tight containment on-site to allow the soil to dry by evaporation.
Forde has also indicated that it could take charge of the material and haul it off to its own facility.
The city has requested Laurel Marcus, the environmental consultant working on the Aquatic Park Improvement Program, to review and identify any additional measures required for mitigating the environmental impacts to the dredging location and the spoils dumpsite.
Councilmember Moore told the Planet that he expected the city to conduct its own tests.
“The very contractor doing the dredging is doing the toxic tests,” he said. “It doesn’t really help.”
The Planet has submitted a public records act request to the city for the test results.
The state water board has asked the city to include in its work plan whether the cleaning operation caused any water issues or if any of the decant water made its way back to the lagoon.
According to Brian Wines, who oversees permits for
Egeberg told the Planet that it was unlikely that the project would resume before Christmas.
“We are considering delaying the remainder of the dredging until after the wet weather season,” he said.
Costs for consulting by Marcus and other expenses associated with environmental mitigations resulting from stockpiling the spoils are estimated not to exceed $20,000.
The report states that these costs would have been the same regardless of errors in permit approvals. #
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=12-04-07&storyID=28616
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