Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 6, 2007
4. Water Quality
REGULATION:
Waste ponds have to go; Marysville looking at rate hike to fund sewer upgrade - Marysville Appeal Democrat
REGULATION:
Sewer needs millions for repairs - Lake County Record Bee
REGULATION:
Waste ponds have to go; Marysville looking at rate hike to fund sewer upgrade
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 12/6/07
By Nancy Pasternack, staff writer
When you have to go, you have to go.
According to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, Marysville’s nearly 40-year-old sewage treatment system really has to go.
That means, for first time in more than eight years, the city will have to raise its sewer rates.
Marysville has been operating for more than two years under a cease-and-desist order for failing to produce plans to remove sewage treatment ponds from the flood plain, i.e., the river bottoms where the Feather and Yuba rivers meet.
At one time, the fact that the wastewater ponds at First and F Streets washed into the
“What was OK five or 10 years ago,” says City Services Director Dave Lamon, “well, now it’s not.”
And it won’t be long until this fact washes away more of Marysville residents’ dollars.
At $13.04 per month per hook-up at a single-family home, the city currently issues the lowest sewer bill in the Mid-Valley.
Lamon says city officials have been reluctant to change the rates until state and federal guidelines were clear, and until Marysville had a clear plan to follow them.
But the time is drawing near.
At a City Council meeting on Tuesday, Lamon announced that he will ask for a rate increase early next year that would take the average residential bill into the $21 to $22 range.
City Manager Stephen Casey says the size of the rate jump reflects Marysville’s inability to grow during a period that saw record hikes in fuel and construction costs.
The levee system that surrounds Marysville physically also strangles it economically.
But by far, the biggest factor affecting Marysville’s sewer budget, he says, is a staggering increase in government regulations.
In the last three years, the city has spent a half-million dollars of its sewer budget in efforts to meet state and federal requirements for sample surveys and reports.
Sewer budget expenditures went from $1.4 million in 2005-06 to $1.7 million in 2006-07, due entirely to an increase in water quality and reporting standards, according to Lamon.
“Now, it’s arsenic levels” that are at issue with regard to water quality standards, he says. “Next, they’ll say you can’t have such and such level of tryethylphenochlorylwhatever.”
“Most of the (cost) was absorbed through their growth,” says Casey.
“We don’t want to make it sound like we’re the poor stepchild,” says Lamon, “but we just haven’t had the availability of some of those capital funds.”
Options for getting Marysville off the state’s sewage treatment noncompliancy list, according to Lamon, include upgrading the existing facility, moving the ponds outside the city, or forging an agreement with the Linda County Water District, which is already undergoing significant upgrades.
Lamon says informal discussions with state officials and representatives from the Linda system have, thus far, pointed Marysville toward the last option.
“They’ve designed their system so that they can continue to increase capacity,” he says. “It wouldn’t impede their (Linda’s) growth to take us as a customer.”
A sewer rate hike for Marysville residents must first run the gauntlet of a written notice by mail, 45-day protest period, and public hearing.
“We have no one, unfortunately, but our residents to pass this cost on to,” says Casey. “Our rate payers, who had to pay for one system, are going to have to pay for a new one.” #
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/marysville_57422___article.html/says_city.html
REGULATION:
Sewer needs millions for repairs
By Elizabeth Wilson, staff writer
LAKEPORT -- Concerns were voiced at recent Lakeport city council meetings, about the regional water quality control board cease and desist order placed on the city's sewer system last spring.
The order required nearly $3 million in repairs unexpected costs for the already strapped-for-cash city. It is operating on a budget deficit of $1.5 million.
The cease and desist order is not a moratorium. "It's common for people to mistake the cease and desist order with a moratorium," Mark Brannigan, Utilities Superintendent said.
Unlike a moratorium, the cease and desist order does not prohibit new residences or businesses from hooking up to the system, although it does limit that number.
The city narrowly avoided such a moratorium, which would prohibit the city from issuing building permits. When the cease and desist order was in draft form, it included a moratorium. But after an appeal, it was removed when the order was adopted by the regional water quality control board on March 15. The order will be in place until a new waste discharge permit is issued.
Brannigan, Utilities said he expects a new permit will go into effect at the beginning of 2009.
But the new permit won't eliminate the cease and desist requirements. "The new permit will combine the cease and desist and the permit, and whatever is the latest and greatest regulatory tool," Brannigan said.
He said the Community Development Department will track the progress of obtaining a new permit. "It's hard to say [what will be included in the new permit] we know it's going to be a hybrid of what we have now."
Part of the cease and desist order required expansion and construction on the sewer system. Spray irrigation expansion, additional monitoring and some project construction to retrofit the system were also requirements. "There was a construction part requiring that we have capacity. By doing that, that's how we got the connection moratorium lifted," Brannigan said.
The original permit allowed the city one million gallons per day of average dry weather flow.
The cease and desist order limited that number to .38 gallons per day. By agreeing to expand spray irrigation fields, .42 gallons per day are currently allowed.
That is only during dry-weather months, according Environmental Project Manager Wendy Wyels. The spray irrigation project was finished by November, Brannigan said.
There is also an 885 acre-feet annual inflow limit. "The city can't exceed those flow rates until they say we have more capacity,'" Wyels said.
The city of
City Manager Jerry Gillham said most of the water that spilled and made its way into
But Wyels said because the water went through the collection system it is considered sewage at that point. "Just because it started out as lake water doesn't mean it isn't considered sewage once it enters the system. The entire volume is considered sewage under the clean water act."
Brannigan said the millions of gallons of sewage that overflowed from the system and made its way into the lake was a direct result of uncapped sewer clean-outs at Will-o-Point resort in Lakeport that sucked lake water into the system unchecked.
"It went to the treatment plant and was sent to storage. We took in more water than we had storage for. What we did is we contacted all of the regulatory agencies, the water quality board, a whole list of people, letting them know that we'd gotten full, instead of allowing it to spill over. We treated it with chlorine and put it out on our spray irrigation field. Some of that water that was sprayed made its way into the drainage course, off the property and into the lake," Brannigan said. He added he did not know if Will-O-Point had received legal repercussions as a result of the incident.
Wyels said Lakeport is not the only community with problems. The Lake County Sanitation District (LCSD)
"We don't take it lightly. We [issue orders] when we need to get a plant to do significant improvements," Wyels said, adding that many counties in their jurisdiction have similar orders issued to their communities sewage treatment plants. #
http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_7646610
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