[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 2/27/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

February 27, 2008

 

4. Water Quality

 

BAY AREA WATER QUALITY ISSUES:

Rain brings sewage into San Francisco Bay - San Francisco Chronicle

 

SEWAGE SPILL:

Sewage spills into Grass Valley creek - Sacramento Bee

 

 

BAY AREA WATER QUALITY ISSUES:

Rain brings sewage into San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Chronicle – 2/27/08

By Peter Fimrite, staff writer

 

There have been more large, environmentally damaging sewage spills in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first two months of 2008 than in the last 7 1/2 months of last year, a Chronicle analysis has found.

 

The flood of effluent continued over the weekend when two spills in Marin County dumped thousands of gallons of sewage into San Francisco Bay and an adjoining waterway.

 

There have been 276 sewage spills this year that either flowed into Bay Area waterways or contained at least 1,000 gallons of effluent, according to the analysis of State Water Resources Control Board statistics.

 

That's more than 14 million gallons of sludge oozing out into the environment, the statistics show. That doesn't even include the Jan. 26 and Jan. 31 spills of 5.15 million gallons of raw and partially treated sewage by the Sewerage Agency of Southern Marin treatment plant in Mill Valley.

 

The number of spills this year far outpaces the last half of 2007, when there were 249 spills that either exceeded 1,000 gallons or entered a waterway, according to the data. The data was collected starting in May 2007.

 

"It's just an indication of what the situation is at all the collection systems in the Bay Area," said Sejal Choksi, the program director for the environmental group Baykeeper. "We have a system that is broken."

 

About 8,000 gallons of sewage spewed out of a blocked pipe in the Marin County community of Sleepy Hollow on Sunday. Workers with the Ross Valley Sanitation District managed to contain some of the sewage, but a lot of it poured into Corte Madera Creek, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

 

That same day, 6,000 gallons of raw sewage overflowed in San Rafael. Andy Preston, the administrator of the San Rafael Sanitation District, said a giant wad of paper towels blocked a pipe, forcing sewage and runoff water out of a manhole cover where it flowed across the street and into the San Rafael Canal, which flows into San Pablo Bay.

 

The paper towels were apparently flushed down toilets and got caught on tree roots that had grown into a 15-inch diameter pipe.

 

"The paper towels catch onto that and build up into a kind of papier mache," Preston said. "With the rainfall Sunday, we had all this water infiltration as well as the sewage and it was more than could get through the opening in the pipes."

 

Some 3,000 gallons were captured, but the rest flowed into the bay, where tests thus far have not found dangerous levels of fecal coliform, Preston said. The public is nevertheless being urged to stay away from the water.

 

"This is the worst spill we've ever had, the biggest one in San Rafael," said Preston, whose district serves 17,000 people.

 

In San Bruno, 1,250 gallons of sewage also spilled on Sunday, but city officials said they contained the sludge before it entered a waterway.

 

The leaks in Marin County and elsewhere pale in comparison to the sewage spewing from Richmond, which has recorded 60 spills totaling 6.4 million gallons so far this year, according to state records.

 

Experts believe the large amount of rain so far this winter is at least partly responsible for the number of sewage spills.

 

"We have had some pretty intense rainfall this year, which may have added to the number of spills," said Ken Greenberg, the regional clean water compliance chief for the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. "Unfortunately, spills are pretty common."

 

Greenberg said the main problem is that there are thousands of miles of sewer pipes in the Bay Area and San Francisco, some of which are a hundred years old and made out of brick or clay. Some of the joints are fastened together with tarred rope, according to water district officials.

 

Many of the pipes are cracked and have roots growing into them, allowing rainwater to flow in and mix with the sewage, overwhelming the systems during winter storms.

 

But not all the spills can be blamed on the rain.

 

"These most recent spills are definitely weather-related," Choksi said. "But in many cases when we end up looking at a particular city, we find that dry weather spills are sometimes more common than wet weather spills. That indicates it's a maintenance issue rather than overcapacity."

 

Baykeeper has sued under the Clean Water Act for sewage spills in Richmond, Vallejo and Burlingame. The South San Francisco sewage treatment plant was fined by the Regional Water Quality Control Board recently for a spill of close to 1 million gallons, she said.

 

Brooke Langston, director of the Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary, said the large number of spills may be contributing to an alarming increase in bird deaths.

 

Since the first sewage spill in Mill Valley on Jan. 26, 319 birds have been found dead in the sanctuary. Langston said 10 dead birds were found Tuesday morning.

 

"A normal winter week for us is two dead birds," she said. "We're getting 60 or 80 a week. It's very concerning. We're worried."

 

Necropsies on 11 of the dead birds at the UC Davis toxicology lab found no indication that sewage played a part in the deaths. Three tested positive for avian cholera, but nobody knows how the others died.

 

"They were emaciated and had loss of muscle associated with starvation," Langston said. "Sewage spills and oil spills have not been directly linked to this, but it's just another stress to an already stressed system, and the birds are paying the price." #

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/27/BA6UV906K.DTL

 

 

SEWAGE SPILL:

Sewage spills into Grass Valley creek

Sacramento Bee – 2/27/08

By Barbara Barte Osborn, staff writer

 

GRASS VALLEY – A sewage spill stopped traffic Tuesday in downtown Grass Valley and caused warning signs to be posted at Wolf Creek.

 

An estimated 1,500 gallons flowed from a Richardson Street manhole, across the street and into an enclosed flume that is a tributary of the creek.

 

It isn't known when the leak – reported by a resident at 8 a.m. – started, said Rick Beckley, deputy director of public works. Cleanup was completed by 9:15 a.m., he said.

 

The spill was caused by a main-line blockage that occurred when a pipe dropped, Beckley said. The line was cleared by hydroflushing and the pipe will be repaired, he said.

 

Public Works employees stopped traffic to disinfect the sidewalk, street and gutter.

 

Warnings to avoid Wolf Creek were posted near Safeway, in the first area the water is visible, Beckley said. The water will be sampled there and elsewhere until safe, he said.

 

Downstream residents and others on the department's Wolf Creek list also were notified by e-mail, he said. #

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/742676.html

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