Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
February 26, 2008
4. Water Quality
PERCHLORATE:
Perchlorate report being held up - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
SEWAGE SPILL:
CMC gets fined $40,000 in raw sewage spill; In January, sewage flowed into Chorro Creek after a backup generator failed - San Luis Obispo
WATER TREATMENT PLANT UPGRADE:
City sewer project moves ahead- Stinky but still reusable - Ukiah Daily Journal
PERCHLORATE:
Perchlorate report being held up
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
Although the city is not under any legal obligation to release the audit, members of the council have said they intend to release the results.
The council members have not voted on a date to release the report and have explained the delay by saying the city has been busy.
"I'm in favor of releasing it the way it is," Councilman Ed Scott said, arguing that the audit should not be edited before it is published. Scott is a member of the council's perchlorate subcommittee.
In April, the City Council hired an auditor to examine the city's expenses related to the perchlorate contaminating the local water supply. Pasadena-based Reith Co., a forensic-accounting firm, conducted the audit last year. A forensic accountant's work can be used in court in fraud cases.
Perchlorate is the primary contaminant flowing from industrial sites on the city's north end. The city has filed a federal lawsuit and has pursued regulatory action against dozens of parties it suspects are responsible for the contamination.
The cost of that battle and the cost of treatment to date is likely at least $20 million, city officials say.
After The San Bernardino Sun filed a request for a copy of the audit under the California Public Records Act, City Attorney Bob Owen, who was later fired by the City Council, wrote that the audit did not have to be released because it was still in draft form and because it was connected to the city's federal lawsuit. Its ties to the lawsuit mean it is exempt from disclosure. The council, he wrote, could decide to release it anyway.
It's true that the city doesn't have to publish the audit until the litigation comes to an end, said Terry Francke, general counsel of the nonprofit open-government organization CalAware.
A court in
In October, Owen released a general breakdown of how $18 million had been spent over a four-year period. But the city has continued to spend more money since the spring of 2007, when Owen's breakdown stops counting.
Firing Owen probably delayed the release of the audit, said Councilwoman Winnie Hanson, the other member of the perchlorate subcommittee.
The city is trying to figure out how to release the information without jeopardizing the lawsuit by revealing its legal strategy, she said.
The transition between city attorneys has distracted the city from the audit, Scott said. But he said he intends to refocus on the issue when he returns from a city trip to
SEWAGE SPILL:
CMC gets fined $40,000 in raw sewage spill; In January, sewage flowed into Chorro Creek after a backup generator failed
San Luis Obispo
By David Sneed, staff writer
State water officials have levied a $40,000 fine against the California Men’s Colony prison for its most recent sewage spill.
A backup power generator failed during a power outage Jan. 27, and 20,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into Chorro Creek and eventually into
Prison officials have until March 28 to respond to the fine, and a hearing is set for May 9 if they decide to challenge it.
The prison could have been fined a maximum of $200,000, but the fine was reduced to $40,000 because of a variety of factors.
The prison has a long history of sewage spills and recently completed a multimillion-dollar upgrade of its sewage treatment system in an effort to prevent further spills. Despite the bay closures, water officials graded the toxicity of the spill low because high stream flows at the time diluted the sewage.
They also assessed the prison’s degree of culpability to be medium. They noted that the backup generator is regularly tested and “was apparently operational until this incident.”
One factor that is different with this spill is that
In addition to serving the prison, the sewer system serves the Sheriff’s Department headquarters,
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/287479.html
WATER TREATMENT PLANT UPGRADE:
City sewer project moves ahead- Stinky but still reusable
Ukiah Daily Journal – 2/26/08
By Zack Sampsel, staff writer
The construction at Ukiah's Waste Water Treatment Plant isn't just an opportunity to upgrade buildings and equipment as part of a three-year, $56.5 million improvement project, but it's also a chance to reuse structures and other items to save taxpayers' money. Serving both the Ukiah and the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District, the plant typically processes almost 3 million gallons of waste each day.
"Throughout the upgrade, we've emphasized the reuse of structures and other items," said Plant Supervisor Jesse Pagliaro, who has worked in waste disposal for 28 years. "It's pretty phenomenal how much we've been able to save and reuse. We're essentially taking the same structures in place and converting them. It saves millions of dollars over a complete rebuild."
The $56 million worth of upgrades at the plant began almost two years ago with completion coming in June of 2009. Within that time, five new buildings will be complete, but don't expect any familiar faces to be torn down.
"I think we're at about 60 percent complete with the rest to be completed in June of next year," said Construction Manager Michelle Leonard. "One of our main focuses has been on retrofitting the existing buildings to remain in use."
The influents building, also known as the main building, was built in 1958 -- when the plant opened -- and houses the electrical controls while also acting as the first step in the waste treatment process. The construction of a 5,000-square-foot building nearby will replace the main building as the plant's hub, but its elder counterpart will still be used for storage and other limited functions.
But the theme of reuse at the plant almost begins before the waste has left your house.
Because 99 percent of waste is comprised of water, Pagliaro said one of the plant's main functions is to separate the water and the solid waste -- all of which is reused in one way or another. The waste arrives at the plant at the influents building looking like nothing more than dirty water -- although the smell in the air is a dead giveaway for its noxious ingredients. Inside the influents building the waste goes through a series of grinders that lead to the primary sedimentation tanks. Once at the tanks, the waste and the water diverge on two different paths that lead to reuse.
As the aerated water rises in the sedimentation tanks, the thick sludge-like leftovers are sent to the dissolved air flotation thickening area where pressurized air makes the sludge thicker and more manageable.
"It acts the same way as shaking up a soda bottle," Pagliaro said.
After leaving the thickening area, the sludge moves on to the digesters, which are massive silo-like containers each holding more than 200,000 gallons of the stinky sludge. Inside the digester, the sludge goes through anaerobic digestion. The site is home to two digesters, one of which is under construction as part of the upgrade process. But being down one digester isn't a problem, according to Leonard, because with as many as 14,000 gallons of sludge processed daily, the workload stays manageable.
After leaving the digester, the sludge is almost unrecognizable as water, methane, carbon dioxide and trace gases have all been isolated from it, leaving a thick clay-like material called biosolid. Not only is the biosolid reused as a daily covering at a landfill in
"At every step we utilize and reuse what we can," Pagliaro said. "It reduces the amount of additional water we use, and essentially it's just good business."
Taking a path separate from the sludge, the water extracted from the waste at the primary sedimentation tanks goes through both physical, chemical and biological processes before it is returned to the water table. Once the water leaves the sedimentation tanks, it goes through a series of trickling filters followed by secondary clarifiers, which separate any leftover solids from the waste water. The chlorine contact structure is the next stop for the partially-purified water. Looking much more clear than the muddied mess that arrived at the plant, the water goes on to advanced water treatment before it ends up at the percolation pond where it will ultimately return to the local water table. There are three percolation ponds at the site, which hold almost 100 million gallons of water amongst the three.
Once construction is complete at the site, Pagliaro and Leonard said the water-treatment process would remain relatively the same while also accommodating growth in the area with a new influents building as well as upgrades to the current infrastructure.
For more information about the Waste Water Treatment Plant, visit the City of
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/local/ci_8367370
####
No comments:
Post a Comment