[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS -WATER QUALITY-4/24/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 24, 2009

 

4. Water Quality –

 

Vote assures changes for Rubicon Trail

The Stockton Record

 

State demands action on water

The Santa Clarita Signal

 

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Vote assures changes for Rubicon Trail

The Stockton Record – 4/24/09

By Dana M. Nichols

 

RANCHO CORDOVA - Regional water pollution regulators Thursday ordered El Dorado County and the U.S. Forest Service to make big changes in coming years in how they operate the Rubicon Trail, possibly even closing the recreational Jeep road at times during wet weather or forcing users to pack out their excrement.

 

The Rubicon Trail is the nation's most famous four-wheel-drive recreational trail, a boon to tourism in the region and a constant source of controversy because of the otherwise pristine mountain forests through which it passes. Hundreds of people - too many for the meeting room - turned out for Thursday's hearing at Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board headquarters in Rancho Cordova.

 

The unanimous vote by the seven-member Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control board does not tell the Forest Service and the county exactly how to prevent water pollution from use of the trail, but it does set deadlines in the next year or so for the two entities to come up with various plans for preventing contamination to mountain streams and lakes from the human feces, motor oil and eroded soil left behind by use of the popular trail.

 

The order also requires forest and county officials to at least consider closing the trail during times when rain or snowmelt make the trail particularly soft and vulnerable, as the Eldorado National Forest already does for nearby dirt roads over which it has full control.

 

That proposal is the most controversial element of the order, prompting fear on the part of recreationists who have driven the trail for generations and hope for trout anglers and other environmentalists hoping to protect area streams from being clogged with silt and pollutants.

 

"It was the worst unchecked erosion I've seen in my 37-year career with the Forest Service," Rich Platt, a retired Eldorado National Forest resource officer, said of erosion he witnessed along the Rubicon Trail. Platt testified as part of a panel of conservation groups advocating in favor of adopting the order and also urging the board to toughen it to include mandatory trail closures during wet weather.

 

Motorized recreation advocates said the photographs and other evidence presented by board staff and conservationists exaggerates the extent of the damage.

 

"The trail, in its context, blends into the forest nicely," said Randy Burleson, president of the Rubicon Trail Foundation.

Although authorities have known for years of problems along the trail, progress has been slow in part because no governmental entity wants to claim responsibility.

 

Unlike most unpaved roads that cross National Forest land, it is not controlled by the Forest Service. That's because El Dorado County in 1887 designated it a highway under a now-obscure law passed in 1866. El Dorado County officials also say that though it is designated a roadway, they never accepted it as a road that they would maintain.

 

Yet El Dorado County officials in recent years have worked with a variety of groups, including the Friends of the Rubicon Trail and the Rubicon Trail Foundation, to repair damage. And Forest Service rangers often patrol the road.

 

Regional board staffers say the county and Forest Service need to cooperate fully with each other.

 

"What we are doing is giving them a timeline," said Wendy Wyels, environmental program manager for the regional board.#

 

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090424/A_NEWS/904240321/-1/rss14

 

State demands action on water

The Santa Clarita Signal – 4/24/09

By Brian Charles

Local sanitation department officials have been told by the state that they must clean up a mess the state helped create, a Sanitation Districts official said.

The Los Angeles County Sanitation District must reduce the salt content of the treated wastewater released from two Santa Clarita Valley facilities into the Santa Clara river, said Steve McGuinn, chief engineer and general manager for the Sanitation Districts. The salt-laced water released from two SCV sanitation plants makes it nearly impossible for farmers downstream to grow strawberries or avocados — two crops that are sensitive to high salt levels, he said.

The water leaving the SCV plants’ salinity averages 150 milligrams per liter, said Francisco Guerrero, a Sanitation Districts civil engineer.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, controlled by the State Water Resources Board, requires the salinity to be no higher than 117 milligrams per liter, said Dirk Marks, Castaic Lake Water Agency water resources manager.

The Sanitation Districts’ solution is an increased local sewer assessment to pay for $250 million to upgrade two SCV water treatment plants to remove the salt. The proposed sewer assessment rate hike could take the price from $14.92 per month to $47 per month during the next six years.

Part of the problem is that the water that comes to the Santa Clarita Valley is salty when it begins its journey, long before it is used by residents here.

“The largest remaining source for chloride (salt), is the state of California through the state water project and (the state’s) not paying to clean it up,” McGuinn said.

The source McGuinn is talking about is the state water that flows into the Santa Clarita and eventually finds its way into the two SCV treatment plants. That water entering Castaic Lake, from which the area draws much of its water, has a salinity level of 75 milligrams per liter, said Marks.

That means the water already is approaching its ultimate acceptable level before it gets used.

The problem occurs because the Water Agency imports water from the Sacramento Delta, which is already loaded with salt.

The salinity problem stems from where in the delta the drinking water is drawn.

“The pumps are in the south delta and pull water from west to east,” Marks said. “Water from the west is influenced by the ocean and has higher salinity,” he said.

The salty water flows south into the local water system where the problems compound, McGuinn said.

The human wastes that flow into the system through area sewers increase the concentration of salts, he said.

The Sanitation Districts are stuck with solving the problem and local property owners are stuck with the bill, McGuinn said.

“When does the state pay for anything?” he asked rhetorically.

The Sanitation Districts board will vote May 26 on the proposed rate increase. A simultaneous public hearing at Santa Clarita City Hall will present the last chance taxpayers will have to express their views about the proposed increase.#

 

http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/12398/

 

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