Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 16, 2009
4. Water Quality –
The Ventura County-Star
Sewer assessment may raise taxes
The Santa Clarita Signal
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The Ventura County-Star – 4/16/09
By Zeke Barlow
With the warm spring sun starting to peek through the clouds, more people are breaking out their swimsuits and heading to the beach.
But for the first time in years, they won’t be able to find out how clean the water is.
State funding for water quality testing was slashed earlier this year during budget negotiations. Other counties were able to find funding to shore up their programs — but not
“This is something that definitely needs to be worked out,” said Polly Barrowman, a staff scientist with Heal the Bay, which monitors testing around the state. “The start of summer is here and people are going to be entering in the water and it’s a big issue.”
County officials are looking into starting some kind of testing in July, monitoring a few of the more popular beaches on a limited basis.
“It all has to do with the state and if they come up with additional money,” said Bill Stratton, a manager at the county’s Environmental Health Division. The county relied on about $160,000 in annual state funding for the testing program, which was mandated under Assembly Bill 411.
Stratton said he’s heard some money from the state might trickle down, but nothing is confirmed. The Environmental Protection Agency gives the county $25,000 annually, but last year’s money has already been spent and a new grant will only help fund a very limited amount of testing starting in July, Stratton said.
Paul Derse, the county’s chief financial officer, said the county’s policy is that once state funding for a state-mandated program goes away, so does the program. There aren’t any plans for the county to fund testing, as other public safety issues would fall higher on the priority list, he said.
Barrowman said without the public notices that alert people of a sewage spill or pollution run-off, there is a potential for a health risk.
“People will enter the water this summer and they are putting themselves at risk because there is no water quality testing taking place,” she said. “Everyone else has found the money.”
Stratton pointed out that for the last two years
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The county’s Watershed Protection District does test two beaches — Kiddie and Hobie — as part of a different monitoring program, but doesn’t have an outlet to share those results with the public.#
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/apr/15/county-wont-test-ocean-water-quality-this-summer/
Sewer assessment may raise taxes
The Santa Clarita Signal – 4/15/09
By Brian Charles
It could get more expensive to dispose of waste water. If a proposed sewer assessment passes muster in late May, sewer rates will triple over the next six years.
The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts must raise $250 million to pay for a new Santa Clarita waste-water facility. The burden will land on homeowners as an increased assessment in their property taxes.
Santa Clarita residents now pay $14.92 per sewage unit each month. A sewage unit is roughly 260 gallons of flow per day, said Dave Bruns, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts assistant financial planner, and constitutes an average of the effluent passed by each home in the city.
Unless more than half of local homeowners file letters of protest prior to a public hearing on May 26, sewer rates could jump from $14.92 per month to $17.92 per month for each homeowner on July 1 and climb to $25.75 by July 1, 2011.
A review after 2011 will determine the rate-increase increments between 2012 and 2015, when rates could hit $47 per month, Bruns said.
The sanitation district board, however, may offer a safety valve - it could vote against the increases, or it could vote for smaller increases.
“We’re definitely concerned with the increase,” said Frank Ferry, Santa Clarita mayor and member of the Sanitation Districts board.
The culprit is a mandate by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to remove high levels of chloride from the water spewing from two Santa Clarita wastewater plants into the
The chloride makes it difficult for farmers to use the water to grow strawberries and avocados downstream because the plants don’t thrive when irrigated with salty water, he said.
“Well, let (the farmers) pay for it,” said Gary Carter, of Newhall. Carter said the increases are coming at the worst time, considering the state’s financial crisis. “Why am I, Joe Homeowner, paying for it?” he said.
A mix of groundwater and imported water from the Sacramento Delta creates the salty flow that passes through the treatment plants, Bruns said. A water-softener removal program started in December will help to cleanse the system of some of the salt, but more needs to be done, he said.
“This kind of stuff it’s green, it’s fun, it’s trendy, but in these economic times, it’s Looney Tunes,” Carter said.
The original plan was to dump the salt in the ocean through an out-fall line between Santa Clarita and
The treatment plant will use reverse-osmosis microfiltration to remove chloride, Bruns said.
The new plant saves $250 million, but Ferry wants to know whether more money can be saved.
“(The city’s) still concerned with the new number,” Ferry said.
Ferry wants to see more options during at the public hearing scheduled for May 26. He said he would like to see the Sanitation Districts explore stretching the rate increase over more than seven years.
But stretching the rate increase across more than seven years is off the table because the facility must be operational by May 2015. The rate increases must stay on schedule for the next seven years to pay for the project, Bruns said.
The Sanitation Districts will hold public information meeting on May 6, 11 and 14 at the Santa Clarita City Hall at
http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/11991/
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