Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 7, 2008
4. Water Quality
WATER QUALITY REGULATION:
Water quality checks hit, miss; Inconsistent enforcement cited in report - Stockton Record
WASTEWATER CONVERSION:
Sonoma eyes wastewater as an energy source - San Francisco Chronicle
Bay cleanup files released; public comment phase begins - San Diego Union Tribune
DRINKING WATER:
Disinfectant divides water providers - Antelope Valley Press
WATER QUALITY REGULATION:
Water quality checks hit, miss; Inconsistent enforcement cited in report
By Alex Breitler, staff writer
Environmentalists have long complained that the State Water Resources Control Board and nine other regional boards are not properly safeguarding water quality.
While not as prominent as other government branches, these boards investigate thousands of violations - some in paperwork, others toxic discharges into creeks and streams. The boards take a key role in protecting water bodies such as the Delta.
The report, open for public comment, was requested by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007.
"It's really an attempt by the water boards, in response to a lot of criticism that we've received, to say where we are right now, warts and all, with the idea that we need this information so we can improve," said Reed Sato, who heads the Office of Enforcement for the state board.
Problems identified by the board include:
» Key data on water quality violations are either missing or incomplete, and records vary from region to region, making it difficult to tell where the most serious violations are taking place.
» In the Central Valley, only 43 enforcement and compliance offers are charged with tracking nearly 16,000 permits.
» When violations are found, not all of the perpetrators are penalized. For example, in the
» Finally, penalties have not been adjusted for inflation in more than two decades. This could make the law less of a deterrent, the report warns.
"Being caught for violating the law is just kind of the cost of doing business," said Bill Jennings, a
"The bottom line,"
Under state law, fines cannot exceed $15,000 for each day a violation takes place or $20 for each gallon of waste discharged into the environment. Under that cost structure, the penalties seem "really low" in some situations, such as the high-profile Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay in the fall, the board's Sato said.
On the other hand, fees could mount into the millions in less than an hour should an illegal spill occur at
The city, after all, discharges about 33 million gallons of treated wastewater every day into the
"The fines they do issue in the municipal arena can be appreciable," said Mark Madison, director of the city's Municipal Utilities Department. "Are they a deterrent? Yes, they are. They do not need to make changes to further get our attention."
A staff attorney for Baykeeper, a conservation group that monitors water quality, said she was encouraged by the state's recommendation to keep better track of enforcement.
"I hope action comes from it," Amy Chastain said. "We don't need just another report." #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080407/A_NEWS/804070320/-1/A_NEWS
WASTEWATER CONVERSION:
San Francisco Chronicle – 4/7/08
By Kelly Zito, staff writer
When most people think alternative energy, solar, wind or biofuels come to mind.
A pilot program taking root in a nondescript business park near the
If the ambitious, expensive plan gets off the ground, environmental planners in similar-size cities around the country theoretically could use the template - developed in part by scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory - to slash power bills and better use every last drop of water.
"Recycled water is a new energy source," said Grant Davis, assistant general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency. "Water and wastewater that you'd normally have to treat and dispose of will become the source for heating and cooling."
The project has gained steam in the past few months as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and some of the biggest names in the wine business have signed on; in March, county supervisors approved $1 million for a feasibility study. The flurry of interest comes as more cities and businesses take a hard look at their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and national labs expand their research to include not just military security, but water, energy and economic security.
If installed as conceived, the airport system would cost $50 million to $70 million and would require sinking new pipes to distribute the water through the 450-acre Airport Business Center by 2010. This is the first of three projects; the combined cost is closer to $200 million. Though it would be a stand-alone project for now, it's part of
This week,
Those who follow the goings-on in government spending say it's too early to bless or condemn the project, but they insist the most time and money should be spent on critical issues in
"Even though the initial capital funding (for the water recycling plan) sounds like it would come from the feds, it does come from us. It's not free money. If this federal money isn't used for this project, it could be used for something else," said Jack Atkin, president of the Sonoma County Taxpayers' Association.
Energy savings expected
Sonoma County Supervisor Paul Kelley was skeptical about the ability of local government to handle sweeping problems such as climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. But after attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference in
"I know it's costly and challenging and there are a lot of hurdles, but you can sit around and wring your hands over it and do nothing, or you can ... put your shoulder to the wheel and see if we can make it happen locally," Kelley said.
Under the wastewater recycling plan, 55- to 60-degree water would be pumped from the Airport-Larkfield-Wikiup Sanitation Zone Treatment Plant to the business park through underground pipes into a pump inside each building. Once in the pump, a refrigeration device transfers heat to or from the wastewater. A compressor converts that heat energy into warm or cold air that can be pushed through about 3 million square feet of office space at the business park, replacing the traditional heating and air conditioning systems, said Tim Anderson, manager of public affairs for the agency.
Water could be reused
In this "open" system, the water could also be used to irrigate landscaping, or, with a secondary set of pipes, flush toilets. Otherwise, the chilly or hot water - between about 40 degrees and 150 degrees - would pass through underground pipes to two adjacent reservoirs. The arrangement could work particularly well for small or midsize cities or suburbs where the energy needed to pump water to low-slung buildings is much less than for skyscrapers.
Eventually, planners would like to incorporate vineyards into the loop. Jackson Family Wines, which already uses processed water from rinsing barrels and tanks to irrigate its fields, is exploring ways to store its wine at low temperatures.
"We're looking at every alternative energy source we can if it saves resources and is economically viable," said Clay Gregory, president of Jackson Family Wines.
Vineyards that now draw water only from local streams and wells could stand to benefit even more.
A hedge against drought?
"You see more and more of a need to have additional water sources," said Tom Gore, who oversees farming of 800 acres of grapes for Icon Estates. "The problem is, I don't have a big pipe running through my ranch to allow that right now. In the future, I hope something like that would be available all over the county."
Some top minds are looking into it. At the
"We all know
"This will help us make educated guesses about what the pressures will be on the public and private infrastructure and help build that into the design." #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/07/MNJ3VU4DV.DTL
Bay cleanup files released; public comment phase begins
By Mike Lee, staff writer
Those records were long delayed because of problems in converting them from paper to computer files. They are important because they pave the way for a months-long process of public comment and regulators' responses, said John Robertus, executive officer of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In the end, the nine-member water board is expected to vote on a cleanup mandate. A central goal is to prevent more toxins in the sediment from entering the marine food chain, which could harm people who eat fish and shellfish from the bay.
Release of the digitized files also seems to allow the board to maintain control of the hotly contested bay order, which could result in a cleanup plan costing $100 million or more.
State officials had threatened to take control of the case.
In a March 24 letter to Robertus, Dorothy Rice, executive director of the State Water Resources Control Board, said the digitization “process has bogged down” and “caused me great concern about the (regional board's) ability to complete the cleanup order process in a timely manner.”
Rice said state officials were prepared to start their own proceedings concerning the bay sediment if the regional board didn't begin the public comment period this week.
The regional board launched the public comment phase yesterday.
For more than two decades, the regional board and various groups have debated the dangers of chemicals in the bay sediment and how best to handle them.
In April 2005, the regional water board issued a draft mandate designed to limit the environmental damage caused by decades of industrial pollution along the waterfront. Lead, arsenic and potentially carcinogenic PCBs are among the compounds generating concern.
The targeted area consists of about 60 acres of the bay bottom south of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge.
Six parties may have to pay for the cleanup. They are General Dynamics NASSCO, BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair, the city of
Yesterday, one of the companies that may be liable for cleanup costs said the proposed 257-day schedule for the board to make a ruling is too aggressive.
Kelly Richardson, a lawyer for General Dynamics NASSCO, said in a letter to Robertus that the initial 90-day period for public comment isn't enough time to review the hundreds of thousands of computer records.
“We anticipated that they would begin immediately to chip away at the whole process,” Robertus said.
The water board decided to digitize and index the mountain of paperwork related to the mandate because of the case's complexity and the expectation that it would end up in court.
Board officials hired D-M Information Systems of Davis in May 2006 for the computer project, which is expected to cost about $120,000. In recent months, the water board has announced one postponement after another for the venture.
Yesterday, senior water board official David Barker said hard drives loaded with case documents had been sent by overnight mail to 13 parties involved in the case, including environmental groups and the
The regional board had pegged the number of documents at about 120,000 pages, plus information on several computer disks. Barker said the current estimate of about 375,000 pages was mainly due to the large amount of information on those disks.
The public can view the supporting documents at the board's office,
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080405/news_1m5bay.html
DRINKING WATER:
Disinfectant divides water providers
By Alisha Semchuck, staff writer
PALMDALE - Should water purveyors use chloramines to disinfect the drinking water supply? That depends who you ask.
While the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency board members have chosen to switch in early 2009 from a chlorine to a chloramine disinfection process (chloramines are formed when chlorine and ammonia mix), thus reducing certain contaminant levels in drinking water, Palmdale Water District directors decided to stick with the chlorine process combined with a filter of granular activated carbons.
All water providers have been ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency to lower drinking water's levels of trihalomethanes, a contaminant that results when chlorine comes in contact with decaying plant life in rivers, lakes and streams.
The decision by the Palmdale district was applauded by Alex MacDonald, senior water resource control engineer with the Regional Water Quality Control Board's Central Valley Region.
"It is good to see that the (Palmdale) district is not going to use chloramines in the disinfection process," MacDonald wrote in an e-mail to the Antelope Valley Press.
"Using chloramines will likely result in the formation of N-nitrosodimethylamine," MacDonald said. He said the compound, referred to as NDMA in the scientific world, has been shown to be a cancer-causer in animal studies.
A lot of water purveyors switched to chloramines "because it is a stronger disinfectant," MacDonald said.
"Significant increases in tumors have been observed in numerous species of animals administered NDMA by oral, inhalation or other routes of exposure," stated a report dated December 2006 on the "Public Health Goal For N-nitrosodimethylamine." The report came from the state EPA and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
"Evidence that specifically links exposure to NDMA to increased incidence of cancer in humans is generally lacking, but the available studies are suggestive," the report said. "Studies on other nitrosamines support the presumption of potential human carcinogenicity of NDMA."
Nitrosamines are generally considered to be "classic carcinogens," the report said. NDMA occurs in various foods and alcoholic beverages, and it has been detected in cigarette smoke. It also has also been detected in
Specifically, the report said, NDMA "has been associated with the chloramine drinking water disinfection process, and has also been reported to be formed in the chlorination of wastewater used for aquifer recharge."
Liquid rocket fuel containing NDMA caused groundwater contamination at rocket testing facilities in
Whether or not chloramines pose a cancer risk for humans, they reportedly do create other concerns, in particular for dialysis patients and people who own aquariums.
When AVEK voted three years ago to use chloramines, the board was split, 4-3, with directors Keith Dyas, Neal Weisenberger and Frank Donato opposed.
"A few of us didn't want to go with chloramines and wanted to look at other alternatives," Weisenberger said.
"This was not the only way to go."
Weisenberger admitted, however, that some 70% of
"AVEK's first alternative was to use groundwater recharge," said Russ Fuller, the agency's general manager. He called it "nature's way" of cleansing water.
"That's what Mojave Water Agency is doing. That's what we have advocated, and that's what we will continue to advocate."
"We hope in the future we will be able to use groundwater banking for treatment, storage and to meet peaking demands" as the
Because of the concerns regarding dialysis patients and fish tanks, Dyas said, "I think the responsible thing for our agency to do is to start warning people now. People deserve to know. Lives are at stake."
He said AVEK's chemist and the consulting firm of Boyle Engineering advised against switching to chloramines.
AVEK will put together an effort to disseminate this information, said Jim Borchardt, vice president of MWH Americas Inc. and the project manager for AVEK's construction work in preparation for the switch to chloramines.
Fish clubs and pet stores will be informed before the switch takes place, as will medical facilities where dialysis take place.
People with fish tanks will need to remove chloramines from the water with compounds available for that purpose, Borchardt said.
As far as NDMA is concerned, "it's important to understand that AVEK will be monitoring their water carefully," he said. "While it's conceivable that some very small amount of NDMA can be formed, we don't expect it to be formed ... primarily because we're treating surface water and the precursors that contribute to the formation of NDMA are not expected to be present."
Those precursors typically can be found in runoff that contains some kind of contaminant, he said. "This is State Water Project water - good quality."
Also, Borchardt said, the agency will "control carefully the process in the treatment plant" for creating the chloramines, control the ratio of chlorine and ammonia and the pH level, a measure of the acidic or alkaline content of the water. Officials strive for a pH level of 8, which is slightly alkaline and close to the pH level of the water taken from the California Aqueduct.
Regarding public health report regarding contamination of groundwater at rocket testing facilities, Borchardt said, "there's a big difference (between) rocket fuel production and anything that might take place in the water treatment plant."
Like Weisenberger, Borchardt pointed out that many water providers, including
Castaic Lake Water Agency went to chloramines more than two years ago. That agency's Web site says chloramines "can harm kidney dialysis patients if it is not removed before water mixes with the bloodstream," so people with home dialysis equipment must seek advice from the water purveyor on the precautions needed to filter out the chloramines.
"We've already contacted all the hospitals, and most commercial (dialysis equipment) is already set up for it," AVEK's Weisenberger said.
However, kidney patients can safely drink water with chloramines because the chemical is neutralized before entering the bloodstream when consumed, according to the Castaic Web site.
AVEK's customers, including Rosamond Community Services District, Quartz Hill Water District and Los Angeles County Waterworks District 40, have their own issues with chloramines.
"We are not forced to take the water with chloramines," said Bob Neufeld, general manager at the Rosamond district. "There are choices. Rosamond is in a unique position with our (share) in the water bank. We could ask AVEK to give us untreated water and deliver it to our water bank."
Then, Neufeld said, his staff could disinfect the water with chlorine.
He said the Rosamond board has met for several workshops and still has not decided on which course of action to take. He expects the board will decide in the next month or two.
Melinda Barrett, water conservation program manager for District 40, said that agency will be doing outreach similar to AVEK's to inform the public about the change. The district also will treat the groundwater it extracts from its wells with chloramines.
Chad Reed, general manager for the Quartz Hill district, said his district also is converting the treatment of groundwater from the district's wells to chloramines to be compatible with the water it receives from AVEK.
"We're planning on putting additional information about chloramines in every newsletter from now until it goes live around January 2009," he said. #
http://www.avpress.com/n/03/0403_s15.hts
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