[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY -9/26/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

September 26, 2008

 

4. Water Quality -

 

 

Bacteria found in Downey's water supply

Public health officials tell residents to boil their tap water for the next three days after the detection of coliform bacteria.

Los Angeles Times

 

UC Davis fined for Putah Creek pollution

Sacramento Bee

 

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Bacteria found in Downey's water supply

Public health officials tell residents to boil their tap water for the next three days after the detection of coliform bacteria.

Los Angeles Times – 9/26/08

By Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Public health officials are telling Downey residents to boil their tap water for the next three days after coliform bacteria were found in the city water supply.

City, state and county public health officials issued a boil-water order about 6 p.m. Thursday, said Gerry Greene, a principal civil engineer with the Downey Public Works Department.

Residents may continue to shower or bathe in water from the tap, but they are being strongly cautioned to boil it before drinking, including water for pets.

City officials could not be reached this morning, but a statement on the city website says Downey tests its water weekly. Testing on Tuesday showed a positive reading for the coliform bacteria at three of the city's 25 sampling locations.

Coliform bacteria are naturally present in the environment and are used as an indicator of other, potentially harmful bacteria. But E. coli and fecal coliform bacteria, which have the potential to pose a serious health problem, have not been detected in the city's water.

The source of the bacteria has not been determined, the statement said.

The boil-water order will continue for at least three days while water supplies are hyperchlorinated and the lines where the bacteria were found are flushed. City crews are flushing water from fire hydrants in the affected areas, and chlorine is being added to disinfect the pipelines.

The city's Public Works Department released a list of responses to frequently asked questions on the boil-water order on its website.

Southern California derives its water from a variety of sources that may become contaminated. In December, San Diego County health officials ordered a nudist camp to boil its water after tests found coliform bacteria. The Sun Island Resort near El Cajon, one of the oldest nudist camps in Southern California, gets its water from wells, which are tested monthly.#

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downey27-2008sep27,0,4126419.story

 

UC Davis fined for Putah Creek pollution

Sacramento Bee – 9/26/08

By Matt Weiser, staff writer

State officials on Thursday fined UC Davis $78,000 for pumping too much pollution into Putah Creek from its campus sewage treatment plant.

The fine is one of numerous penalties announced recently by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is clearing dozens of backlogged violations from its books. On Thursday the agency also announced a $33,000 penalty against the Calaveras County city of San Andreas and a state prison facility in San Joaquin County – both for similar sewage treatment problems.

 

In the UC Davis case, the campus sewage treatment plant violated numerous pollution limits from Jan. 1, 2001, to March 31, 2008. Treated wastewater from the campus is discharged into Putah Creek. But on numerous occasions over that period, the effluent included too much aluminum, chlorine, copper, cyanide and coliform. Limits were also violated for salinity, sediment and acidity.

 

UC Davis spokesman Andy Fell said the violations were caused by storm events that overwhelmed the campus treatment plant, and by improper disposal procedures. These have been corrected by upgrading the plant and staff education.

 

"We work to be a good citizen and minimize our environmental impact," Fell said.

The campus also recently expanded its wastewater treatment capacity by 50 percent at a cost of $7 million.

Ken Landau, a water board spokesman, said many of the backlogged penalties date to 2000, when a change in state law required minimum penalties to be assessed for certain pollution violations. The state's nine regional water boards did not keep pace with the numerous fines that accumulated under the mandate, and only recently began to clear the backlog.

 

In most cases, Landau said, water quality regulators worked with violators for years to adopt new methods and technology to prevent additional violations. "They weren't necessarily ignored," he said. "We just had not processed the penalties."

 

Some small communities, like San Andreas, are allowed under state law to apply their fines toward new systems to prevent pollution in the future. The law recognizes some small agencies lack the resources to both pay a fine and clean up their operations. The city's multiple violations involved coliform and suspended solids entering the Calaveras River.

 

In the state prison case, the Deuel Vocational Institute near Tracy repeatedly pumped too much chlorine, dichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, trichlorethene, oil and grease into a tributary of Paradise Cut and Old River, both part of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.#

http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/1267438.html