[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 12/13/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

December 13, 2007

 

4. Water Quality

 

LOCAL WASTEWATER SYSTEMS:

Current wastewater system may be enough; Public works director believes city's system meets state board's criteria - Los Banos Enterprise

 

Sewer system agreement reached - Lake County Record Bee

 

 

LOCAL WASTEWATER SYSTEMS:

Current wastewater system may be enough; Public works director believes city's system meets state board's criteria

Los Banos Enterprise – 12/11/07

By Corey Pride, staff writer

 

Public Works Director Dwayne Chisam is optimistic about the future of the city's method of dealing with wastewater treatment.

After months of study he is now under the belief that Los Baños will be allowed to keep its pond system.

 

"We believe, based on the information we have to date, that we can stay in the ponds for the first two phases of our project," Chisam said. "You have criteria that you have to go through to see if you can meet and we believe we can meet that."

 

The criteria Chisam referenced is set by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. Chisam said many municipalities in the Central Valley are made to switch from their pond systems to a more mechanized, and expensive, method of waste disposal.

 

Los Baños' wastewater treatment plant is on the east side of town, off Henry Miller Road. It is a 1,200-acre facility that features 510 acres of ponds where wastewater is stored and treated.

 

Chisam said the criteria the state board expects you to meet to continue using the ponds includes having a salt reduction plan, a long-term water quality plan, prove pond systems are not leaking into the ground water system and have enough pond land available to beneficially use the water.

 

City Manager Steve Rath said he believes the proposal to keep the city's wastewater system the same is the result of hard work by Chisam and the wastewater consulting firms of Erler & Kalinowski Inc. and Eco:Logic.

 

"Initially we didn't know how it was going to go, whether we could stay in the ponds, how long we could stay in the ponds," Rath said. "Nothing has paid more dividends to this community than the ability to stay in those ponds."

 

The California Regional Water Quality Control Board has yet to be presented with Los Baños' proposal, but last week the city took steps toward implementing phase one of its wastewater treatment plant expansion and craft a plan to keep the pond system.

City officials approved five service agreements for a total of $832,677 with companies that will assist in the first phase of Los Baños' wastewater treatment plant expansion.

 

The project is going to be done in three phases that will allow the wastewater treatment plant to expand from a capacity of 4 million gallons per day to 9.6 million gallons per day.

 

Phase one will include expansion and upgrade items, a salt minimization study, rate study, impact fee study, treatment capacity and feasibility fee study and a water system master plan.The first phase of the project will cost $13.1 million and is estimated to take up to 18 months to complete.

 

The start of phase two, which will take the plant up to an 8 million gallons per day capacity, depends on population growth in the city.

 

Phase two will entail implementation of phase one's study recommendations, acquiring additional land for the wastewater plant and design and construction of the facility's expansion.

 

The funding sources for the first and second phases include a combination of current residents and people that will come to Los Baños in the future.

 

The city has decided to explore the possibility of assisting Los Baños Foods Inc. with a pre-treatment system, allowing the city to gain more wastewater treatment plant capacity.

 

"They are the largest tax contributor," Rath said. "It's absolutely perfect (we help) Los Baños Foods with the taxes they provide and the jobs they provide. We really are forming a nice partnership with those folks." #

http://www.losbanosenterprise.com/local/story/14230819p-14758958c.html

 

 

Sewer system agreement reached

Lake County Record Bee – 12/13/07

By Tiffany Revelle, staff writer

 

LAKEPORT Recent, unexpected population growth in Middletown spurred a $144,450 agreement for sewer system improvements Tuesday at the Lake County Board of Supervisors meeting.

 

The agreement was between the Lake County Sanitation District (LaCoSan) and CH2M Hill, a Redding engineering firm.

 

County Special Districts administrator Mark Dellinger told the board that the agreement would begin engineering design for improvements to the Middletown Wastewater Treatment Plan that would anticipate future growth based on a master facilities plan developed in 2005. Dellinger said the plan was included in a request for proposals that went out to 10 firms earlier this year.

 

"We're having a very difficult time right now keeping up with the growth projections in Middletown," Dellinger said. "The growth projections that are occurring there have far exceeded anything that community development or the general plan can predict, and they've even outstripped our own predictions."

 

The engineering agreement adopted Tuesday will pay for the preparation of a bio-solids waste management plan, the design and construction inspection of a larger chlorination facility and design of the first phase of improvements that will increase capacity. The cost of construction will be determined at a later time and will mean a rate hike, Dellinger said. He added that Middletown's wastewater rates are the lowest in the county.

 

Dellinger said CH2M Hill was selected out of four responding firms because of its competitive bid and because the firm was the most responsive to the growth issue.

 

Middletown had an average growth rate of 3.8 percent between 2000 and 2006, according to Lake County Community Development director Rick Coel. "It was a spike," Coel said Wednesday, adding that a more typical growth rate is around two percent. Coel's growth projections for the area are based on permits issued and requested for the community. Coel said 128 permits were issued in Middletown in a seven-year period, and attributed a large part of that to a 50-unit apartment complex built in that time frame.

 

Dellinger's predictions rely on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, updated frequently by the California Department of Finance. Dellinger said an engineer in his department estimated Middletown's population growth between 2000 and 2005 to be between six and eight percent.

 

Coel said growth slowed considerably recently. "We see cycles of boom and bust in the housing industry, and we're seeing one now. We were in a boom a couple of years ago, now it's slowed down," Coel said. Coel added that two more developments with a potential 213 new housing units are tentatively planned for Middletown.

 

The board also accepted a donation of $118,200 from Twin Pines Casino to increase the system's capacity. Of that amount, 87,450 will go toward the engineering contract with CH2M Hill, Dellinger said. He said the remainder was already in the county's budget for this fiscal year.  #

http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_7706057

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