Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 7, 2008
4. Water Quality
PERCHLORATE:
County agrees to pay for cleanup in Rialto - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
WATER QUALITY PROJECT FUNDING:
Water quality project drying up; co Rivera to provide funds until federal dollars arrive - Pasadena Star News
SEWAGE SPILL:
Rains brought massive sewage spill; Storms overwhelmed Pacifica plant, sending 7.5 million gallons of waste into ocean - Inside Bay Area
PERCHLORATE:
County agrees to pay for cleanup in Rialto
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
The Board of Supervisors voted in closed session Tuesday to approve the terms of the settlement with
The Rialto City Council approved the settlement on Feb. 19.
Under the terms of the settlement, the county would pay
"There's no disagreement on any of the terms," Wert said.
All that is needed is for the settlement document to be finalized. Then Rialto Mayor Grace Vargas and Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Biane can sign it.
"That could happen by the end of the week," Wert said.
The contamination the county would be responsible for cleaning is flowing from county-owned land adjacent to the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
The city sued the county again in 2006 at the height of bickering between the two sides.
Perchlorate is flowing from not only the county's land but also other industrial land on
In order to lobby federal officials for money and to put pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward in its efforts to get some of those parties to clean up the contamination, officials from a number of local water agencies went to
It was the first trip to the nation's capital for the officials - from the county,
State Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Montclair, and staff from the office of Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter, D-Rialto, also attended.
"One of our requests back there was that the EPA immediately get involved and issue water orders against the responsible parities," Scott said.
The group met with Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, as well as committee staff from Sen. Barbara Boxer's and Sen. Dianne Feinstein's offices, said Anthony "Butch" Araiza, general manager of the West Valley Water District.
The group also met with other local members of Congress or their staff, and staff from the Department of Defense's research division.
The group also asked for $10 million in cleanup money, Araiza said. #
http://www.dailybulletin.com/search/ci_8483700?IADID=Search-www.dailybulletin.com-www.dailybulletin.com
WATER QUALITY PROJECT FUNDING:
Water quality project drying up; co Rivera to provide funds until federal dollars arrive
By Airan Scruby, staff writer
The Water Quality Protection Plan is a joint project between the Central Basin Municipal Water District and the cities of
Now, the city is transferring the money from its general fund so cities can pay for the project until more federal money is approved to subsidize the project.
"We're obligated to purchase that water, no matter what the fluctuation in price is," City Manager Chuck Fuentes said.
The idea for the project was born in 2000, according to Joone Lopez, deputy general manager for the Central Basin Municipal Water District.
Lopez said the district was awarded $10 million in federal funding to construct wells and a treatment facility in
The project came on-line and began supplying water in 2004, but construction went over budget, Lopez said, and money that was intended to last for seven years ran out in less than four.
"When we looked at the operating cost of the facility, it's about $1.2 million annually," Lopez said.
That money had to be made up in water prices. While
The cities are required to share operating costs by buying the water, Lopez said.
Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Santa Fe Springs, sought $11.2 million in federal money last year to secure the future of the project. The funding, part of HR 123 which allocates money to clean up water in the
Lopez said they expect the money to trickle down in 2009, and hopes rates will go down when that occurs.
"We're still all keeping our fingers crossed," Lopez said. "This is an important project for the region."
For
According to Fuentes, the city expects to be "made whole again" in the summer of 2009.
Councilman David Armenta voted against the change. He said he would not approve such a large financial impact on the city if there was no promise that funds would be received in 2009.
"There are a lot of red flags going up that I'm really uncomfortable with," Armenta said. "Money can be taken away, depending on many things. How can we be sure?"
Fuentes said he had assurances from Napolitano that the money would become available.
"As strong as a guarantee as you can get, we have right now," Fuentes said.
Fuentes said the water is still a bargain, compared to the Municipal Water District, which sells its customers water at more than $500 per acre foot.
Fuentes said any surplus of water the city may have in the future could be sold at a profit, even if it continues to buy at the $250 rate.
"Pico Water District will take every drop that they can get their hands on," Fuentes said. "You could price it to make a profit." #
SEWAGE SPILL:
Rains brought massive sewage spill; Storms overwhelmed
Inside Bay Area – 3/7/08
By Julia Scott, staff writer
PACIFICA — Overwhelmed by the biggest storm in many years, Pacifica's wastewater treatment facility dumped more than 7.5 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the ocean Jan. 25 and 26, records obtained by the Times show.
That violation far surpasses the 5.2 million gallons cumulatively dumped into
Few Pacificans know the spill occurred at all or realize its magnitude.
No humans or animals were known to be affected by it. However, the county closed all nearby beaches for five days and did not observe any dead fish in nearby Calera Creek. Some concerned residents say the malfunction, and the problems that preceded it, do not bode well for plans to add a biodiesel production plant on the same property.
The biodiesel plant would use treated water from the wastewater facility and dump its effluent — which contains chemicals like methanol — back into the plant to be processed.
Plant officials trace the problem to a breakdown in the cleaning process. A sequenced batch reactor — one of six tanks involved in separating the waste solids — was broken, and the sand filters normally used to catch the smaller particles became rapidly clogged.
By the evening of Jan. 25, the water flowing to the wastewater treatment plant had so overwhelmed the system that 75 percent of the wastewater only went through a settling process and the ultraviolet disinfection process for bacteria associated with fecal coliform and other organisms. The wastewater deposited into Calera Creek, and subsequently the ocean, contained everything from fats and oils to heavy metals and anything else flushed into the sewer system that day.
Plant manager Dave Gromm said the sequencing batch reactor had been broken since last October but was fixedlast week. If it hadn't malfunctioned, the plant might have made it through the storm without a Clean Water Act violation.
Then again, maybe not.
"We had water everywhere," he said. "We had water dripping down through the lab, through offices in the building.
The pipes couldn't bring water here fast enough. The manholes were popping. It was just an act of God."
Lila Tang, a division chief with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, said her agency would investigate the January spills in
"We have taken quite a few enforcement actions against the city (over time), possibly more action than against other cities," Tang said. "We haven't imposed any corrective actions on them for the January incidents or for these types of wet-weather events in general," she added, noting that the city of
Tang said the
January's spill wasn't the only such incident in the plant's history, however. Documents provided to the Times show that another big storm — lasting from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, 2001 — forced 110,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater into Calera Creek without the benefit of the sand filters or the ultraviolet cleaning system.
Gromm attributes those incidents to growing pains at the plant, which had just come online in September 2000.
"We had to figure out how to change the plant to respond to these high flows," he said. "Since then, I don't think we've had any problems" — the most recent incident excepted.
But other violations of a different nature have plagued the wastewater plant since its inception.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board fined the
The list of violations included at least 74 discharges of fecal coliform, 23 discharges of ammonia and two mercury limit violations, according to documents obtained from the board.
Some of these problems are attributed to the plant's anaerobic digester, which becomes clogged with foam. Plant engineers employed a temporary fix, and next week, construction crews will begin the process of modifying the machine at a cost of $1 million, according to Gromm.
Other machine malfunctions have also led to fines. In December 2001, a pump station in the neighborhood of Linda Mar discharged over 1 million gallons of untreated sewage into the ocean, leading to fines of $125,000.
In December 2005, 253,000 gallons of sewage escaped from the Rockaway pump station during a pipe system replacement.
The Pacifica City Council recently approved an environmental impact report for the biodiesel plant, which would recycle restaurant oil into fuel for filling stations across the Bay Area.
"The concern is that we're going to integrate another piece into this when the first industrial facility isn't working correctly," said Simons, who is president of a local citizen's group called Pacificans for Progress. "We need to take a step back and find out how the safety of the wastewater-treatment plant would affect the safety of the biodiesel plant."
Simons and his group are concerned that the combustible chemicals used in the biodiesel refining process, combined with the fact that a biodiesel facility has never been paired with a wastewater-treatment plant before, could result in a disaster.
Whole Energy representatives have responded that the whole manufacturing system will be enclosed in double-walled tanks with special hoses. A staff member will be present at all times to ensure that the computer-controlled process is on track, and any leakage will trigger an alarm.
Other than fixing what's presently broken, Gromm said there's not a lot the city can do to prevent its aging sewer pipes from taking in too much rainwater. The fines have already taken their toll.
"You're going to have to throw in $50-plus million to redo your collection systems," Gromm said. "Yeah, you can add something to the treatment plant, and give it more capacity, but what can the little community of
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