Water containing wastes – aka wastewater – from residential,
commercial and industrial processes requires treatment to remove
pollutants prior to discharge. After treatment, the water is
suitable for nonconsumption (nonpotable) and even potable use.
In California, water recycling is a critical component of the
state’s efforts to use water supplies more efficiently. The state
presently recycling about 669,000 acre-feet of water per year and
has the potential to reuse an additional two million acre-feet
per year.
Non-potable uses include:
landscape and crop irrigation
stream and wetlands enhancement
industrial processes
recreational lakes, fountains and decorative ponds
toilet flushing and gray water applications
as a barrier to protect groundwater supplies
from seawater intrusion
wetland habitat creation, restoration, and maintenance
The Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant, located just south of
LAX, purifies water and injects it into the ground to act as a
barrier between seawater and fresh groundwater. … But the
idea is to one day recycle wastewater into drinking water and
put it right back into the system. The industry is moving
cautiously, though, given what you might call a considerable
“ick” factor for the public.
On Jan. 11 homeowners, administrators and local officials broke
ground on the sewer project for the Larkfield neighborhoods,
which had been leveled by the 2017 fires. The project has been
a source of conversation and negotiation, as the homes had
previously been on individual septic systems.
An explosion rocked a portion of a Corona wastewater treatment
facility Friday but no injuries or chemical releases were
reported, city officials said in a news release. The cause of
the explosion is under investigation by the Corona Fire
Department and the Department of Water and Power.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
The increasing spills that have polluted the Tijuana River Valley
and ocean off Imperial Beach have resulted in frustration and
anger in recent years, but also triggered broad political
collaboration at the local, state and federal level that has put
the region on the brink of real action.
Nobody seems to know why a rope that caused a nearly weeklong
boil-water advisory in Poway was there in the first place. The
rope had been hanging on a wall in a vault adjacent to the
clearwell drinking water reservoir and a stormwater drain. When
heavy rains on Nov. 28 and 29 caused the stormwater to surge
and back up into the vault, somehow the rope became lodged in a
swing gate allowing muddy water to leak into the reservoir…
A California company that produces Crystal Geyser bottled water
pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally storing and transporting
hazardous waste and agreed to a $5 million fine, federal
prosecutors said. The waste was produced by filtering arsenic
out of Sierra Nevada spring water at CG Roxane LLC’s facility
in Owens Valley, authorities said.
A piece of rope “inexplicably” became lodged in a valve
separating a 10-million gallon reservoir from a storm drain in
late November, causing a nearly week-long, costly boil-water
advisory in Poway, a report prepared by the city for the state
concludes.
Evaporation ponds, which are commonly used in many industries
to manage wastewater, can span acres, occupying a large
footprint and often posing risks to birds and other wildlife.
… Now researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated a way to double
the rate of evaporation by using solar energy and taking
advantage of water’s inherent properties.
San Francisco officials were quick to dispute Trump’s claims.
But some of California’s most prized rivers, beaches and
streams are indeed contaminated with levels of fecal bacteria
that exceed state limits, threatening kayakers, swimmers — and
the state’s reputation as a bastion of environmental
protection.
Nearly two months after the Kincade fire was fully contained in
northeastern Sonoma County, Santa Rosa is struggling with an
after-effect of the massive blaze: its wastewater disposal
pipeline at The Geysers was disabled for six weeks, backing up
the Sebastopol-area plant with about 400 million gallons of
treated wastewater.
The company, Watsonville-based Monterey Mushrooms Inc., was
accused of polluting a South Bay creek with manure for years,
despite orders and warnings dating back to the 1980s. The
judgment, the largest for a water pollution lawsuit in county
history, will be used in part to restore the damaged Fisher
Creek…
Passing the new North American free trade agreement would mean
millions of dollars to help upgrade sewage infrastructure on
the border, say the agreement’s backers. But an environmental
group and a local organization on the U.S.-Mexico border say
it’s not enough.
During its 10 years, the Ellis Wastewater Treatment Facility
has reshaped itself to take in waste produced by a rapidly
changing city, factoring in an increased population and new
industries like large-scale beer production. Recently-completed
projects costing roughly $9 million have changed the face of
the wastewater facility by expanding treatment capacity,
tackling hard-to-process industry waste and building a system
that will provide biofuel to city vehicles.
The new United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement reached
Tuesday commits the federal government to provide $300 million
for the Border Water Infrastructure Program to address
pollution on the U.S.-Mexico border, including the Tijuana
River Valley region, where millions of gallons of raw sewage,
heavy metals and other contaminants regularly flow from Tijuana
to San Diego.
The city mailed notices to Simi Valley property owners (not
renters) proposing raising sewer rates about 40% over the next
five years to pay for much-needed upgrades to the city’s sewer
system. The sewer treatment plant and many of the underground
pipes are nearly 50 years old. The plant must be upgraded and
many sections of pipe replaced.
Elected leaders from across South Bay San Diego announced
Tuesday a joint effort aimed at pressuring the federal
government to support a long-term fix to the sewage pollution
that routinely flows over the border from Tijuana, fouling
beaches as far north as Coronado.
Frogs are delaying another wastewater treatment facility
project, this time at the South San Luis Obispo County
Sanitation District in Oceano. The South SLO County Sanitation
District members are working to upgrade the nearly 50 year old
facility, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is
concerned construction could impact the California red-legged
frog, a species on the verge of being endangered.
Authorities have reopened about six miles of Orange County
ocean and bay water areas closed by a 1.4-million-gallon sewage
spill. … The estimated amount of the spill was revised down
from 4 million gallons. The city of Laguna Beach said
wastewater began leaking Wednesday afternoon from a broken
valve on a 24-inch city sewage pipe near Aliso and Wood Canyons
Wilderness Park.
Through a variety of panel discussions, presentations and a
showcase of student research, the Re:Border conference is
exploring how San Diego State University and its regional
partners can contribute to innovative solutions for
water-related challenges in the transborder region.
A bi-national conference at San Diego State University was
aimed at analyzing water resources in the Baja California and
San Diego border region where challenges include cross-border
pollution and water scarcity… Experts at the Reborder 2019
conference discussed ways to improve regional access to “a
secure and reliable water supply” through wastewater treatment
and desalination.
A group of California Democrats on Monday pressed the EPA’s
internal watchdog to investigate whether the agency has
retaliated against their state for political reasons, including
by threatening to withhold federal funds for multiple
transportation projects.
The Environmental Protection Agency fanned the flames of an
ongoing dispute with San Francisco on Thursday, reaffirming its
stance that the city’s water agency improperly discharges
wastewater into the ocean. In a letter to the San Francisco
Public Utilities Commission, EPA officials reiterated their
assessment that the city was out of step with its wastewater
discharge permit, which regulates water quality standards.
Thousands of gallons of partially treated wastewater was
released from California Men’s Colony into Chorro Creek
Thursday morning, the San Luis Obispo County Public Health
department said… Approximately 33,000 gallons of wastewater
were released from the prison north of San Luis Obispo…
A $32.6 million addition to a water treatment facility rising
out of the ground under giant cranes will turn waste into
electricity, and provide education, jobs and more to an
underserved community, according to the East Valley Water
District. A co-digester added to the Sterling Natural Resource
Center project will turn sewage and food waste into three
megawatts of power per year, enough to power about 1,950
houses.
The treatment plant isn’t only at risk from rising sea levels
… but also from rising groundwater and tectonic forces
causing the land to sink, according to the 2018 assessment
compiled by local sea level rise expert Alderon Laird. Laird
has said to expect .9 feet of sea level rising by 2030, 1.9
feet by 2050 and 3.2 feet by 2070. … Arcata city officials
are discussing moving the treatment … but that’s too
expensive to do right now.
The board charged with overseeing the water quality in much of
the San Francisco Bay Area unanimously approved a plan
requiring local businesses, residents and government agencies
to reduce the amount of fecal bacteria they put into the
Petaluma River watershed, including San Antonio Creek.
Ponds at wastewater treatment plants are like magnets for birds
and bird-watchers, especially those along the migration flyway
in California’s Central Valley area. Among them is the Clear
Creek plant in Redding, along the Sacramento River, which
serves as its receiving stream.
Orange County’s wastewater recycling program, a pioneering idea
that’s already touted as the largest of its type in the world,
is about to get bigger. Big enough, in fact, to serve the tap
water needs of about 1 million residents, according to the
Orange County Water District and Orange County Sanitation
District.
Although still relegated largely to populated areas in such
water-challenged states as California, Arizona, Texas, and
Florida, water reuse is gaining ground in other areas. At the
same time, the focus of water reuse increasingly is shifting to
potable applications
On September 10, 2019, at the 34th Annual WateReuse Symposium
in San Diego, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a
draft National Water Reuse Action Plan for public
comment—containing 46 proposed actions, to be accomplished by a
mix of federal, state, private, local and private stakeholders,
in order to promote 10 strategic objectives.
The revamped and expanded plant is expected to be operational
in spring 2021 and will do so with a new name — The Rosamond
CSD Water Reclamation Plant — to better describe its ultimate
purpose. In addition to handling the community’s wastewater
disposal, the plant will recharge the underlying groundwater
basin, providing additional groundwater for the District to
pump.
Winding westward along Marin County’s northern border, San
Antonio Creek encompasses about 20 percent of the Petaluma
River watershed. While the state has continuously designated
the main stem of the Petaluma River a contaminated water body
due to excessive levels of bacteria tied to fecal matter since
1975, San Antonio Creek, a tributary to the river, has gone
unaffected by the river’s bacteria problem. Until now.
How do we mitigate the “yuck factor” that many people have
about reclaimed water use, when it’s been proven safe and
effective elsewhere? These concerns were discussed at
GreenerBuilder 2019, USGBC’s conference in the Pacific region,
hosted in San Francisco, where industry experts from across the
state led a panel discussion on tactics to improve onsite water
reuse.
Supreme Court justices, both conservative and liberal, appeared
skeptical Wednesday of a Trump administration argument that the
federal Clean Water Act should not apply to sewage plant
wastewater that flows into the ground and eventually seeps into
federally protected waters, such as rivers or oceans. The case
from Hawaii has emerged as a major test of the federal
anti-pollution law’s scope …
A species of frog made famous by a Mark Twain short story has
delayed construction on Morro Bay’s new sewer plant, even
though the protected amphibian hasn’t been spotted anywhere on
the site in years.
Jaime Bonilla was sworn into office Friday as governor of
California’s neighboring Mexican state. … In his first major
speech since taking office, Governor Bonilla promised to
address poverty, public safety issues and end cross-border
sewage flows within six months. Bonilla, a dual U.S.-Mexico
citizen, formerly served as an elected member of the Otay Water
District in Chula Vista.
A supplemental environmental impact report on hydraulic
fracturing released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management found no significant impacts, and plans for leasing
1.2 million acres for oil and gas development in eight
counties, including Santa Barbara County, will not change.
The City of Paso Robles recently celebrated the completion of
one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects in
the city’s history, new Tertiary Treatment Facilities at the
City’s Wastewater Treatment Plant.
A team led by USC Viterbi’s Adam Smith has found that purified
water returned to Southern California aquifers often becomes
contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a realization
that could have major implications on the global water supply.
Mexico says it will rehabilitate five pumping stations in the
border city of Tijuana to prevent cross-border sewage spills
that have angered U.S. communities in the San Diego area.
Nationwide, more than a dozen utilities have started developing
renewable natural gas production through partnerships with
farmers, wastewater treatment plants and landfill operators,
while nine have proposed price premiums for customers who
choose it as a fuel, according to the American Gas Association.
The California Coastal Commission last week approved a project
proposed by the California Department of Parks and Recreation
to replace and reline about 6,500 feet of sewer line within
Doheny State Beach.
Solano County has filed requests for water and sewer hookups at
the Brown Street location of the proposed Tiny Shelter homeless
pilot project – services that will cost the county thousands of
dollars to reconnect the property to Vacaville’s main lines.
A stipulated judgment in a lawsuit over a regulation to control
pollution in runoff from agricultural irrigation systems has
extended the expiration date for Agricultural Order 3.0 to Jan.
31, 2021.
The Trump Administration’s EPA takeover, with its race to the
bottom rollbacks of the environmental and public health
protections that Americans have relied upon for decades, is
low; so low that even some of the industries the Administration
seeks to support are pushing back. But what the Trump
Administration has been up to lately in California–
weaponizing the Clean Water Act to serve a political
vendetta…well, can it get any lower than that?
Aging water treatment systems, failing pipes and a slew of
unregulated contaminants threaten to undermine water quality in
U.S. cities of all sizes. … Still, with only a handful of
exceptions, “water systems aren’t designed to focus on health,
they’re focused on cost-containment,” says Seth Siegel, whose
book “Troubled Water,” released this month, examines the
precarious state of water infrastructure in the U.S.
Sewer rates are scheduled to go up in January for Camarillo
Sanitary District customers, who already pay some of the
highest wastewater rates in the county.
Morro Bay pushed through discussions about 17 possible
locations before it finally pinned down the South Bay Boulevard
and Highway 1 site for its water reclamation facility. But the
location is unacceptable to a group of residents who are
petitioning the city’s decision to purchase the site of the
future facility.
The Ventura City Council approved a $200 million-plus plan
Monday that will give the city more drinking water and greatly
reduce the treated wastewater its sewer plant releases into the
Santa Clara River estuary. The big-ticket item in the city’s
plan is a new plant that will take wastewater that once went
into the estuary and treat it to drinking water standards…
Napa County is taking a hard look at two small, remote Lake
Berryessa-area communities to try to keep their aging utility
services from once again falling into dire straits.
Working to “Make Every Source a Resource” and striving toward a
more sustainable future, East Valley Water District Board of
Directors approved the addition of state-of-the-art co-digester
technology at the Sterling Natural Resource Center during the
Sept. 11 board meeting.
As CO2 levels rise more rapidly than predicted, we need to
re-assess infrastructure needs, from sewage plants and roads
located along the coasts as the sea level rises, to our water
supply and delivery system. “Infrastructure” might sound like a
boring word, but it won’t be so boring to any of us if water
doesn’t come out of the tap or untreated sewage is spilled into
our bays…
The Senate approved almost $20 million in funding to address
sewage flows along the border. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who
secured language in three different appropriations bills for
the 2020 fiscal year, called the spills that send millions of
gallons of raw sewage from Tijuana to San Diego,
“unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, city officials broke ground on a project to
modernize Stockton’s wastewater treatment facility in order to
meet stricter federal and statewide regulations and potentially
foster business and residential growth.
California’s senators have asked the Environmental Protection
Agency’s watchdog to investigate whether the agency abused its
enforcement powers when it accused San Francisco of improperly
dumping waste into the ocean.
Water board members voiced concern at the last meeting over
what to do if state officials lower the threshold for PFAS
contamination to such a level that the wells would have to be
shut down. The board decided not to wait for such an
announcement and agreed to get the necessary water treatment
equipment up and running as soon as possible.
The United States-Mexico border region is enduring the latest
in a series of massive cross-border sewage tainted spills.
Federal officials in charge of monitoring the trans-border
sewage situation on the U.S. side of the border said nearly 8
million gallons of tainted water flowed across the border in
the Tijuana River channel.
Bright pink “whiskers” have popped up in Riverside Park
recently, likely left by people performing a topography survey
in the beginning stages of a grant-funded project to restore
habitat in the largely undeveloped park that used to be home to
the city’s sewage treatment plant.
The cluster of streets, home to 166 single-family residences
before the subdivision was leveled by the Tubbs fire … was
built originally like a rural development: with homes relying
on septic systems instead of sewers. That’s set to change
starting next year, when work begins on a municipal-style sewer
system proponents say will provide peace of mind for
homeowners, ease environmental concerns, open up parcels to
further development and potentially increase property values.
The project, called the Upper Salinas River Basin Conjunctive
Use Project, captures existing wastewater flows generated
within the eastside of the District and will return these flows
back to the Meadowbrook Wastewater Treatment Plant. The
wastewater undergoes treatment and is then discharged into the
river alluvium that contains the Salinas River underflow
providing subsequent conveyance to district wells…
The California Water Boards sent at least 270 letters to
farmers in the Emerald Triangle, warning them to come into
compliance with regulations or face possible fines and even the
loss of their cultivation licenses.
Laguna Beach residents who described the beige water treatment
tower on Laguna Canyon Road as part of the city’s folklore and
identity called on the City Council on Tuesday night to restore
and renovate the building, possibly for use by small
businesses.
There are numerous agencies involved in water quality issues
that are focused on the San Francisco Bay and the Delta. In
this brown bag seminar, Stephanie Fong, Interagency Ecological
Program Coordinator Chair, California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, discussed the technical, geographical, and political
boundaries that separate water quality monitoring in the Bay
and the Delta.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Elected leaders from around the San Diego region met with the
Trump administration on Tuesday to ask for help stopping the
sewage-tainted water that regularly flows in the Tijuana River
across the border with Mexico. Specifically, regional leaders
tried to persuade federal authorities to fund a more than
$400-million plan to capture and treat the pollution…
An influx of Bay Area visitors to Sonoma County’s bucolic
riverlands has spiked in recent years, bringing with it a
problem typically reserved for the privacy of one’s own home.
People are pooping in public.
Claims by President Donald Trump on Wednesday that discarded
drug needles in San Francisco are making their way through the
city’s sewage system and into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific
Ocean were widely blasted the following day by experts who say
he has no idea what he’s talking about.
A new article on UC Davis’s California Water Blog shines a
light on just how complicated water governance can be and why
it matters… For more, listen to this interview with Kristin
Dobbin, one of the article’s co-authors and a UC Davis Ph.D.
student studying regional water management and drinking water
disparities in California.
“There’s tremendous pollution being put into the ocean because
they’re going through what’s called the storm sewer that’s for
rainwater,” Trump said. “And we have tremendous things that we
don’t have to discuss pouring into the ocean. You know there
are needles, there are other things.”
From New York City to coastal California, a poison-producing
living slime is overtaking waterways and shorelines, killing
pets, ravaging tourism markets and making its way into local
drinking water. So far this year, algae has been implicated in
dog deaths and illness in California, Georgia, North Carolina
and Texas.
The administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a de-facto
moratorium on hydraulic fracturing while it studies permitting
procedures for the politically controversial oil
well-completion technique better known as fracking.
Residents say the system is outdated because it combines 7.4
million gallons of sewage and storm water to be stored
underground, and they want a more modern system that splits the
two.
Tiscornia Beach, an area on the lower American River frequented
by summer visitors, tested 7.5 times higher than the safety
threshold on Tuesday, according to data from the county and the
Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. Samples of
river water taken two weeks earlier at nearby Discovery Park
tested almost 5.5 times higher than the safety threshold.
Efforts to increase recycled water use in California got a
significant boost this week with the State Water Board’s
issuance of an order authorizing the Sacramento Regional County
Sanitation District’s program to deliver an average of 45
million gallons per day of recycled water from the Sacramento
Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant …
A Sacramento Bee investigation found high levels of E. coli
bacteria — a sign of fecal contamination — along the lower
stretch of the American, where homeless camps line the banks,
residents walk their dogs, and where thousands of swimmers dip
into the water to escape Sacramento’s summer heat.
Residential graywater offers up a huge potential for our city
to offset potable water use. When the next drought rolls
around, and it will, we could be sitting pretty with healthy
trees and landscapes using less water from the Sierra than we
do now.
The blue ocean has turned a rusty red in Manhattan Beach — but
what is causing this change in color? The red tide, as it’s
called, is from an algal bloom, according to Valerie Hill,
administrative and development director at the Roundhouse
Aquarium off the Manhattan Beach Pier.
When the next drought rolls around, and it will, we could be
sitting pretty with healthy trees and landscapes using less
water from the Sierra than we do now. How could we accomplish
this? The answer is graywater, defined in California as the
discharge from laundry wash water, showers, and bathroom sinks.
To end a labor dispute that’s halted work on one of the largest
and most important water projects in San Diego history,
Assemblyman Todd Gloria rolled out a bill Friday to require
union-friendly terms for work on the project.
The city of Ukiah made its first delivery of recycled water
through its extensive Purple Pipe system this week, putting
about 2 million gallons of water reclaimed from local sinks,
showers and toilets into an irrigation pond just south of the
Ukiah Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant.
There’s a lot of confusion and concern about what will happen
once the city of Ventura no longer discharges millions of
gallons of water into the Santa Clara River Estuary. … To
help residents get a better understanding of how Ventura’s
wastewater operations work, and to help answer those questions,
city officials opened up its facility to the public last week.
A high-profile series of dog deaths has awakened the public to
the growing problem of toxic algal blooms, spurred by rising
temperatures and pollution. The blooms are emerging as a
national, not just regional, concern, according to preliminary
data reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
through July.
The only bi-national financial institution dedicated to funding
environmental infrastructure projects along the border unveiled
six possible solutions to slowing down the cross-border sewage
spills that routinely shut down southern San Diego’s beaches.
Residents of the Larkfield Estates neighborhood north of Santa
Rosa who lost their homes in the October 2017 Tubbs Fire are
asking a builder to help them build a new sewer system this
year that is as affordable as possible.
Escondido is moving forward on a reverse osmosis treatment
facility that will reduce the city’s wastewater and also
provide more recycled water for agricultural use. The project
will divert millions of gallons of water from the discharge
pipeline, and turn it into highly treated irrigation water.
It’s expected to begin construction in early 2020…
What Public Works Director Mark Houghton touts as “Manteca’s
own refinery” is now converting methane gas generated at the
wastewater treatment plant along with food waste to produce
compressed liquefied gas. And in doing so, Manteca is well on
its way to effectively wiping out all CO2 impacts the
wastewater treatment process creates and then some.
Oxnard Assistant Public Works Director Tien Ng presented the
item and said the city wants to integrate the water, wastewater
recycled water and stormwater while looking for opportunities
to align projects on the same street. They want to do them at
the same time. Doing this enhances the schedule and cost for
such projects.
The ban passed last week means that about 8,000 Russian River
property owners are now looking at how to repair or replace
substandard or failing residential sewage disposal systems when
the new law goes into effect next year.
Finding a way to deal with the wastewater produced by a town
full of people is a challenge, one that’s forced the
McKinleyville Community Services District to find some creative
solutions. Officials are touting the emerging solution as a
win-win, a cutting-edge project that will serve the district’s
needs at minimal cost to ratepayers while also helping the
environment.
Newly released documents shed light on why a sewage processing
agency, Silicon Valley Clean Water, paid its general manager
$875,000 as part of a severance agreement, and it appears a big
part of that was equity the agency gave him in a $4.5 million,
six-bedroom home in the hills overlooking Redwood City.
The City Council is split on how much to raise water rates over
the next five years to fund projects that will wean Santa
Monica off of imported water. … Bi-monthly water and
wastewater bills for single-family homes would increase by $23
on average under the lower rate structure and $36 under the
higher rate structure.
Sonoma County has hired a new ombudsman, Alisha O’Laughlin, to
help river residents deal with the new maze of regulations
targeting older sewage disposal systems along the Russian River
and its tributaries. … O’Loughlin’s hiring coincides with
county efforts to implement its onsite wastewater treatment
system (OWTS) regulations and comply with state law…
Across the United States, more than 460,000 households, or
nearly 1.5 million people, lack a plumbed connection to
drinking water or sewers. … A new study in the Annals of the
American Association of Geographers takes a detailed look at
the persistence of “plumbing poverty” in the U.S. …
In Jamestown work has begun on a new $13.73-million wastewater
treatment facility that should be operational by September of
2021. The facility is being built on property along Karlee Lane
that was purchased by the Jamestown Sanitary District in 1993
for the sole purpose of constructing a future plant.
Native seaweed has the potential to be cultivated in California
coastal waters and used to alleviate the effects of local ocean
acidification, according to a new study funded by NOAA’s
California Sea Grant.
Like many communities throughout California, Carpinteria faces
sustained and historic drought conditions. … In response to
the shortfall, CVWD proposes a $25 million project to take
wastewater that has been cleaned, purify it and then inject it
into the groundwater basin to be used for various needs,
including potable drinking water.
Customs and Border Protection commissioned a six-month study,
published earlier this year, of 42 samples from the river and
two culverts during dry, wet, post-rain, and standing water
conditions. … Justin Castrejon, a Border Patrol agent and
regional spokesman, said the report validated the claims of
agents who have complained of physical health ailments after
patrolling the affected areas.
Researchers from Stanford University have developed an
affordable, durable technology that could harness energy
generated from mixing freshwater from seawater. Outlined in a
new paper … they suggest that this “blue energy” could make
coastal wastewater treatment plants energy-independent.
A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Colorado
School of Mines (Mines) is developing a microbe-based system
that could remove toxic compounds from oilfield produced water
so it can be reused in other water-intensive sectors such as
agriculture and energy production.
Contractors are busy digging, stockpiling and hauling off an
average of 40 truckloads of contaminated soil a day from the
site of a former wastewater treatment plant at Larkspur
Landing. About 64,000 tons of the mixed soil and demolition
debris, which contains trace amounts of polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCBs, will be sent to a municipal landfill, while
another 2,600 tons, will be shipped to a hazardous waste
landfill.
The sewage processing agency that serves Menlo Park, San
Carlos, Belmont and Redwood City paid its former general
manager $875,000 as part of a severance agreement, according to
documents obtained by the Post. However, the circumstances
behind the departure of Daniel Child are about as murky as the
effluent that flows into the agency’s plant…
State water officials ordered an investigation this week into
the elusive source of contamination in Richardson Bay, where
water samples collected near Tiburon beaches have shown high
bacteria levels for more than two months.
By 2030, the Carpinteria Valley Water District estimates that
on a dry year, the deficit could be as high as 1,550 acre
feet—enough to fill 775 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or serve
the average yearly use of 6,200 local households. In response
to the shortfall, CVWD proposes a $25 million project to take
wastewater that has been cleaned, purify it and then inject it
into the groundwater basin…
The East Bay Municipal Utility District now has a back-up plan
that includes filling water tanks to capacity during Red Flag
Warnings… Portable generators would go in cities like
Berkeley, Castro Valley, and San Ramon starting on Aug. 1.
Other Bay Area water agencies also have plans in place.
Blasted by sun and beaten by waves,
plastic bottles and bags shed fibers and tiny flecks of
microplastic debris that litter the San Francisco Bay where they
can choke the marine life that inadvertently consumes it.
Just how much Manteca’s treated wastewater is worth to
agricultural users served by the Delta Mendota Canal that are
often at the mercy of fish flows diversions and drought that
reduces their Central Valley Project allocations may be
determined in the coming year.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved an exclusive
negotiating rights agreement with Cal Am for the Chualar,
Boronda and Pajaro sanitary sewer systems, and authorized
county Resource Management Agency director Carl Holm to
negotiate, execute, and implement the sale and transfer of the
systems. … The county has been seeking to sell the sewer
systems for years…
Fifty feet below the platform of the Powell Street BART Station
sits the starting point for one of the largest water recycling
projects in San Francisco — one that’s transforming dirty
groundwater into clean steam heat for hundreds of downtown
buildings. In the process, it’s saving tens of millions of
gallons of drinking water annually.
Today, Rep. Juan Vargas (CA-51) along with Reps. Susan Davis
(CA-53), Scott Peters (CA-52), and Mike Levin (CA-49), hosted a
press conference to announce the introduction of their Tijuana
River Valley Pollution Solution bill package. The combined
legislation would further support mitigation efforts in the
region.
For around 20 years, Los Angeles has shipped a large portion of
“biosolids” from its toilets to fertilize a farm it owns just
west of Bakersfield. Bakersfield, in return, has been providing
an annual load of 18,000 acre-feet of free water to the farm.
However, after passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, the value of treated wastewater increased.
Visitors are being encouraged to stay out of the water at
Mission Bay due to high bacteria levels. On July 17, the San
Diego County Department of Environmental Health issued an alert
for the Bonita Cove part of the Bay that stated: “Bacteria
levels may exceed health standards. Avoid water contact in the
advisory area.” In addition to Bonita Cove, visitors are being
told to not enter the water at Leisure Lagoon.
On June 28, the city of Lompoc received an inspection report
from the Environmental Protection Agency concerning an April
inspection of its wastewater discharge permit. … Seven
violations were noted. While some were technical, there were
also some violations aimed at the current political attitude of
three councilmen toward regulatory compliance.
A plan to connect two ecologically rich areas in Glendale’s
Verdugo Wash has been endorsed by officials tasked with
revitalizing the upper part of the Los Angeles River.
While the San Simeon decision appeared quick and easy to make,
it had taken decades to get the issue to that point.
Commissioners and San Simeon representatives seemed equally
relieved to have finally come to an agreement that involves
getting within 10 years enough grant funds to move the plant
further from the coast.
American Biodiesel also admitted to tampering with monitoring
devices and methods that are designed to detect clean water
standards. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, employees’
tampering was done with the purpose of underreporting acid and
pollutant levels and volumes that otherwise would have exceeded
figures allowed by the city’s regulations.
The commission voted unanimously Thursday to proceed with the
new infrastructure plans. Project advocates said the site,
located more than 3 miles inland, was the type of plan the
commission wanted to see because it will keep the plant away
from the sea where it’s vulnerable to flooding, tsunamis and
sea-level rise.
In a letter recently distributed to a number of residents in
the unincorporated areas of the Los Angeles County Department
of Public Health announced a new fee on septic tank users,
leaving some confused and others surprised.
People who fish for carp have a love for them, as I learned
when I joined my guides at the middle of the river in Long
Beach. Lauren Mollica, a former pro skateboarder who now works
primarily as a carpenter, has been fishing the L.A. River for
about a year, and she waxes rhapsodic about the scent freshly
caught carp leaves on one’s hands.
While the local sewerage agencies followed state and federal
law in reporting spills to governmental agencies, the public
wouldn’t necessarily know much about them. In this case, it has
taken Heal the Bay, a statewide environmental organization, to
dig them out of bureaucracies’ files.
Climate-conscious local and state officials are increasingly
embracing electricity sources that float on water, as they seek
ways to convert their least-coveted spaces into hubs of
electricity. This summer alone, developers broke ground on
California’s largest floating solar project, located on a
wastewater treatment pond in Sonoma County.
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
There’s a new twist in the California-Trump brawl in the state
Legislature. It’s aimed at overriding the president’s power to
weaken environmental protections. Put simply, any federal
protections President Trump tried to gut would immediately
become state regulations in their original, strong form.
A decade-long debate over how and where to build the new Morro
Bay sewage treatment plant will come to head at a California
Coastal Commission meeting in San Luis Obispo on Thursday. …
The preferred site is located on about 15 acres of a 396-acre
property at the corner of Highway 1 and South Bay Boulevard.
A legal case brought by the Associated General Contractors has
delayed the Pure Water project, one of the city’s most
ambitious undertakings ever. Hundreds of jobs are on the line,
but the stakes may be even higher regionally.
The 2018-19 Solano County grand jury concluded that if treated
wastewater could be used to irrigate crops that saved water
would help meet the water needs of a growing population. …
The grand jury also had recommendations on plant efficiency and
taking advantage of other renewable energies and plant output,
such as using wind and solar power for plant operations…
Each day, people living on the streets and camping along waterways across California face the same struggle – finding clean drinking water and a place to wash and go to the bathroom.
Some find friendly businesses willing to help, or public restrooms and drinking water fountains. Yet for many homeless people, accessing the water and sanitation that most people take for granted remains a daily struggle.
Californians have been doing an
exceptional job
reducing their indoor water use, helping the state survive
the most recent drought when water districts were required to
meet conservation targets. With more droughts inevitable,
Californians are likely to face even greater calls to save water
in the future.
Steve Frattini, mayor of Herrin, Ill., went to a water
conference a few years ago in California amid a severe drought.
So he started working on a plan to send water to the area. The
water is from the city’s wastewater treatment plant … The
Wastewater Treatment Plant has a rail line nearby that would be
used to transport the water… Initially, Frattini said the
water would go to the area near the Salton Sea in southern
California, a sea that’s been drying up for years.
While there are all kinds of water safety issues to be aware
of, the State Water Resources Control Board wants the public to
know about one that may not be so obvious — freshwater harmful
algal blooms, or HABs. As California confronts the realities of
climate change, HABs have become increasingly common in rivers,
lakes and reservoirs, and they can be especially dangerous to
children and pets.
The Moulton Niguel Water District has agreed to pay $4.8
million to settle a 3-year dispute with South Orange County
Wastewater Authority, which processes a portion of the
district’s wastewater, according to a settlement agreement
released Monday. … Moulton Niguel stopped paying capital
improvement invoices for the plant in 2016, saying it would
sign past-due checks only as part of a process to terminate its
contract to use the plant.
As the city considers changes to its wastewater rates, its
consultant, Nebraska-based HDR Engineering Inc., suggests users
that send “high strength” wastewater to the city’s treatment
system pay more because of the additional treatment costs.
Domestic septic tank/portable restroom discharges, industrial
laundry services and alcohol beverage manufacturers such as
breweries, wineries and distilleries could be affected…
Billions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into our
California coast each day, and with it, billions of resident
dollars are quite literally going to waste. Why aren’t we
utilizing available solutions to stop this sewage discharge and
capitalize on our people’s investment in clean drinking water?
A new bill introduced by State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson …
would effectively ban traditional cigarettes through its
prohibition on the sale of tobacco products that have
single-use filters. … Cigarette butts constitute about a
third of all the trash found on California’s beaches
The agency charged with monitoring water quality standards
throughout the Greater Los Angeles region found that local
cities have committed more than 2,000 water quality violations
within a five-year period, but the violators suffered little if
any consequences.
Atascadero residents will likely be paying more for wastewater
services starting in just a few months. The last time
wastewater rates were increased in Atascadero, President Bill
Clinton began began his first term in office and Seinfeld was
one of the most watched shows on television.
The district is considering a five-year series of rates
increases — up to 5% per year for sewer and up to 6% per year
for water. … As district staff have explained during public
meetings, much of STPUD’s infrastructure is outdated and in
need of repair or replacement. Additionally, more than 10% of
the STPUD’s water system lacks adequate water capacity to fight
a major fire.
People who live along the southern border all say the same
thing: When it rains, it stinks. The reason is a failing, aging
network of pipes that run from Mexico to wastewater treatment
plants in the U.S. When heavy rains fall, the pipes often break
and spill raw sewage on both sides of the border, causing not
only a putrid odor but public health and environmental
concerns.
State water regulators gave local sanitation officials three
more years to carry out their plan to reduce the amount of
chloride that ends up in the Santa Clara River. … The
sanitation district … was mandated to reduce the amount of
chloride, or salt, that discharges from wastewater treatment
plants into the Santa Clara River, largely due to concerns by
downstream farmers that chloride was damaging salt-sensitive
crops such as strawberries and avocados.
There are actions we can take today that will reduce the
pressure on struggling sea life and protect the industries and
communities that rely on a healthy ocean. … The Ocean
Resiliency Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 69) tackles a range of
threats facing our fisheries, from fertilizer runoff that feeds
harmful algae to sediment flowing downstream from logging
operations that violate clean water rules, which can silt up
the spaces between rocks where baby salmon shelter and feed.
In California, treated wastewater also is a critical source of
water for the environment, and, increasingly, a source for
recycled water. Climate change is worsening water scarcity and
flood risks. Advancements in engineering and technology can
help prepare wastewater agencies for a changing climate. But
significant shifts in policy and planning are needed to address
these challenges.
County supervisors backed an ordinance that would regulate
alternative water treatment options for contaminated small
water systems on a trial basis amid public concerns regarding
the potential cost and complexity of the proposed rules.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Tuesday after a
meeting at the White House, that President Trump has agreed to
invest $2 trillion to revitalize the nation’s infrastructure.
Congressional leaders said they will return to the White House
in three weeks to determine how to pay for it.
A group of Democratic senators and San Diego County-based
congressional representatives sent a letter to multiple federal
agencies Tuesday urging them to address sewage runoff in the
Tijuana River … Local and state officials as well as
environmental activists have decried the condition of the
Tijuana River for years, which regularly causes beach closures
along the county’s coastline, particularly after heavy rain.
The development of the Arcata Marsh as an integral part of
wastewater treatment in Arcata was the primary focus of two
professors at Humboldt State University, George Allen and
Robert Gearheart, who developed a process that uses what was a
former salt marsh as a means to treat sewage that is then
discharged into Humboldt Bay. On May 7, Gearheart … will be
honored by the Environmental Law Institute at its annual awards
dinner in Washington, D.C.
Mayor Eric Garcetti Monday unveiled a Green New Deal for Los
Angeles, setting aggressive new environmental goals in a range
of areas, including electric autos, air quality, trees and
public transit. … The plan includes a reiteration of some
previous commitments, but also sets some new benchmarks,
including sourcing 70% of L.A.’s water locally and
recycling 100% of all wastewater for beneficial reuse by 2035.
Gena Jacob figures she may come out ahead, in at least one
respect, in the wake of the Tubbs fire that leveled her
Larkfield home. … Through a program created by Sonoma Water
and offered to 143 homeowners in Larkfield Estates, they plan
to connect to a new sewer line — freeing them from the
constraints of their aging septic system — with a financing
package that takes some of the sting out of the cost.
Despite cost increases and weather-related delays, construction
of the 1.6 billion-gallon Trampas Canyon Reservoir in south
Orange County is well underway and officials continue pointing
to long-term savings to be gleaned by reducing the need for
imported water. … Construction costs have soared from the
2016 estimate of $56 million to $83 million today…
Tracy Hall says she’s lucky to have friendly neighbors who
allow her to live in an RV on their property while water laps
at a temporary barrier on the edge of her property. But Hall
and others are tired of the disruption to their lives that
started more than two years ago when the formerly dry lake in
Lemmon Valley filled with stormwater runoff and urban effluent.
Santa Barbara’s wastewater treatment facility has officially
rebranded as El Estero Water Resources Center in a move to
change public perceptions about the reuse of wastewater. The
facility, previously known as El Estero Wastewater Treatment
Plant, celebrated the name change on Monday with a host of
speakers and a tour of the facility.
Introduced by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-SF) and backed by a
diverse array of environmental and business interests, SB 69,
“The Ocean Resiliency Act,” tackles questions as big as the
ocean itself. How much waste does California put in the ocean?
How much more can our oceans take? And how will climate change
amplify our mistreatment of our natural resources?
The current five members of the Montecito Water Board ran as
slate candidates in 2016 and 2108, and they won election
largely on the promise of recycling treated wastewater for
irrigation. A group of wealthy donors poured $200,000 into
their campaigns. Yet the new board seems in no hurry to get the
job done.
In an effort to end Thousand Oaks’ near total reliance on
imported water, public works staff is asking the City Council
to commit $16.6 million over the next two years to build a
groundwater treatment plant at the city’s publicly owned golf
course. The Los Robles Greens Golf Course Groundwater
Utilization Project—which will be offset with an estimated $6
million in State Water Project (Prop. 1) grants—is the single
most expensive item on the city’s proposed $97-million 2019-21
capital improvement program budget…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled on Friday
that the EPA’s 2015 power plant wastewater pollution rule was
not stringent enough, siding with environmentalists. Circuit
Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan ruled in favor of various
environmental groups that portions of the wastewater rule
regulating legacy wastewater and liquid from impoundments were
“unlawful.”
Oakwood Lakes Water District that serves a gated community and
a mobile home park just outside of the southwest Manteca city
limits needs to expand and upgrade its wastewater treatment
plant. Manteca needs to find a way to send storm water from a
large swath of southwest Manteca to the San Joaquin River. The
two needs have led to a proposed agreement between the water
district and the city …
Currently, the city has two significant environmental impact
reports, which CEQA requires, making their way through the
development process. One is for a plan to build a 7-mile
pipeline to tap into Ventura’s long-held investment in state
water. … The other project would capture effluent from
Ventura’s wastewater treatment plant, treat it and turn it into
drinking water.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer unveiled his proposed budget
for fiscal year 2020 on Thursday, saying it includes the
highest infrastructure investment in the city’s history. …
The budget includes an infrastructure investment of $715.8
million, an increase of nearly 300% over the $179.4 million
infrastructure allocation in the city’s fiscal year 2014 budget
… More than half of that is earmarked for the city’s Pure
Water program, which aims to recycle sewage into drinking
water.
With recurring sewage spills, some San Diegans are still afraid
to go into the water at some of the county’s southern-most
beaches. Now, local leaders are fighting the U.S. and Mexican
governments to clean up the waste-filled waters near the
border.
Expected to temporarily hold excess sewer flows during storms,
a project to build an underground flow equalization system
underneath the San Mateo County Event Center parking lot is one
of several components of San Mateo’s Clean Water Program. …
But for many residents … pile driving and the installation of
dewatering wells included in the project’s construction plans
drew concerns about noise, the structural integrity of nearby
homes and the project’s impact on neighbors’ quality of life.
On 177 acres situated between San Clemente’s Talega community
and Ortega Highway, mountainous earthworks are taking shape.
Santa Margarita Water District … is building a
1.6-billion-gallon reservoir. When completed in 2020, Trampas
Canyon Reservoir, less than a half-mile north of Talega, will
be able to store recycled wastewater collected from as many as
five South Orange County treatment plants.
Statewide leaders in agriculture recently launched an
initiative to clean oilfield wastewater for use in arid Western
states, hoping to reduce the region’s carbon footprint and
improve the lives of ranchers and farmers.
City officials approved a plan for a new groundwater
sustainability project, hoping it will be a solution to
increase the supply of groundwater and find a place for excess
effluent water coming to the Tehachapi Waste Water Treatment
Plant. The benefits will not appear for decades, when the
project is complete.
Mexican and American officials met in Mexico City this week to
talk about fixing a costly set of problems that have sprung up
along the border: failing sewer systems that send raw sewage
spilling into rivers. … Roberto Salmón, Mexico’s commissioner
of the International Boundary and Water Commission, said border
cities from Tijuana to Matamoros need a total of about 10
billion pesos, or $520 million, “just to bring the sanitary
systems up to speed, to correct the problems.”
Armed with a recent court ruling that climate change must be
considered in decisions to open federal land to oil and gas
drilling, conservationists shot the opening volley Thursday in
what promises to be a protracted legal battle over the future
of fracking and oil drilling in Northern California.
Behind every toilet flush and faucet turn that draws on a
public water system, there’s an entire industry making sure the
water meets certain standards. … But McKeon and others in the
field worry about a looming shortage of water-treatment plant
operators, as a wave of older operators hits retirement age.
McKeon fears that in the next 10 years, there won’t be enough
operators to monitor and control every public water system
adequately.
San Diego water customers will soon pay $6 to $13 more a month
to fund the first part of the city’s new recycled water
project, according to a newly released estimate. The city is
working on a multibillion-dollar plan to purify enough sewage
to provide a third of the city’s drinking water by 2035.
Rate increases are being proposed in part to help pay for
improvements to the Regional Wastewater Control Facility, which
is set to go through the first phase of a modification project
aimed at extending the life of existing amenities at the plant.
The modification project will also improve working conditions
for employees, and bring the site into compliance with national
pollutant discharge standards.
In places like Oakland, flooding will occur not just at the
shoreline, but inland in areas once considered safe from sea
level rise, including the Oakland Coliseum and Jones Avenue,
where [UC Berkeley professor Kristina] Hill and her students
now stood, more than a mile from San Leandro Bay. In fact, she
added, rising groundwater menaces nearly the entire band of
low-lying land around San Francisco Bay, as well as many other
coastal parts of the U.S.
City officials in Tehachapi are investigating ways to move
treated effluent water coming from Tehachapi’s Waste Water
Treatment Plant. More potable water could be available if a
groundwater reuse project becomes reality, opening more land at
Tehachapi Municipal Airport for potential growth.
The upgraded facility can now handle an average of 18 million
gallons per day, with a wet weather flow capacity of up to 36
million gallons. There’s also room for growth, with the
facility designed to accommodate up to an average of 22 million
gallons per day with the addition of added MBR cassettes.
Milpitas mayor Rich Tran is following up on a campaign promise
to do something about the bad odor that has drifted over the
city for decades. … The goal is to trace the source of the
stench, which residents have long suspected to come from the
Newby Island landfill, the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional
Wastewater Facility or the Zanker-owned recycling facility.
AquaCycl, a San Diego-based wastewater treatment startup, took
home the grand prize at the San Diego Angel Conference on March
15. … The company developed a technology that uses
electricity-generating bacteria to speed up wastewater
treatment rates, resulting in a more efficient, lower-cost
option.
Otters, birds, and turtles might be the last animals you would
expect to find living next door to the Interstate 680
toll-plaza. But, tucked between the freeway, an oil refinery
and a wastewater facility hides an oasis on the mend. … The
21-acre constructed wetland is in the middle of an industrial
zone and is part of the Mt. View Sanitary District Wastewater
Treatment Plant. “It’s the very first wetland on the west coast
to use treated wastewater to create wetlands,” explained
district biologist Kelly Davidson.
After years of planning, the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary
District is gearing up to break ground on a three-year,
multimillion-dollar renovation of its sewage treatment plant.
Workers were rained out the past couple of months but are now
preparing the work site at the district headquarters at 300
Smith Ranch Road in San Rafael to replace the wastewater
treatment facilities and expand its recycled water capacity.
The city of Sacramento has approved a $2.9 million contract
that will allow construction of a new sewage vault underneath
McKinley Park. The goal of the project is to provide a place to
store sewage during wet weather, when stormwater runoff — and
wastewater — can end up in the same place, and overflow can
send it all into East Sacramento’s streets.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. Harkins, 58, was
appointed by President Trump last August to take the helm of the
United States section of the U.S.-Mexico agency that oversees
myriad water matters between the two countries as they seek to
sustainably manage the supply and water quality of the Colorado
River, including its once-thriving Delta in Mexico, and other
rivers the two countries share. She is the first woman to be
named the U.S. Commissioner of the International Boundary and
Water Commission for either the United States or Mexico in the
commission’s 129-year history.
The announcement by Mayor Eric Garcetti last month that Los
Angeles will recycle all the wastewater produced at the
Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant by 2035 signals an end to the
era of addressing water shortages by importing water from
far-flung places and initiates a long-anticipated era of
reusing locally available supplies. The shift will require L.A.
residents to understand both the necessity of the plan and the
technology that will produce safe water.
Santa Rosa officials said Tuesday that managers at the city’s
wastewater plant have been forced to release at least 250
million gallons of treated sewage into two creeks and the
nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa amid record inflow to the facility
that began in last week’s storm. The three-day deluge pushed
more than five times the normal flow of wastewater and runoff
into the city’s Laguna de Santa Rosa plant. It was the highest
inflow ever recorded at the site, according to the city.
A long-simmering, multi-million dollar dispute among coastal
Orange County water and sewage districts took a major step
toward resolution Wednesday, when a Superior Court judge issued
a tentative ruling that Moulton Niguel Water District is
obligated to pay outstanding bills to the South Orange County
Wastewater Authority.
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
Gena Jacob figures she may come out ahead, in at least one
respect, in the wake of the Tubbs fire that leveled her
Larkfield home. … Through a program created by Sonoma Water
and offered to 143 homeowners in Larkfield Estates, they plan
to connect to a new sewer line — freeing them from the
constraints of their aging septic system — with a financing
package that takes some of the sting out of the cost.
A comprehensive bill addressing ocean concerns will call for
improving the quality of ocean water and wetlands, better
salmon habitats, and rules that would protect whales from being
hit by ships. … Other potential legislation ranges from
a move to end the practice of pumping treated sewage into the
ocean to a law that would eliminate most paper shopping
receipts to a smoking ban on all California state beaches.
A controversial oilfield wastewater disposal operation east of
Bakersfield has been shut down amid a years-long regulatory
crackdown and opposition by environmental activist
organizations. The Jan. 3 closure … puts an end to a
practice regional water quality regulators say threatened to
foul Bakersfield’s water supply through a slow process of
underground migration.
Redlands’ wastewater treatment facility needs $40 million in
upgrades soon thanks to years of deferred maintenance,
officials say. But it could be worse – building a new
facility would cost $100 million. The original plant was
built in the 1960s, and the last major changes were made in
2004.
San Diego County has agreed to pay nearly $700,000 for a
pipeline rupture that dumped raw sewage into a San Diego River
tributary. The spill sent about 760,000 gallons of sewage into
Los Coches Creek in February and March 2017, violating the
federal Clean Water Act, among other state and federal rules.
The sewer rate increases approved for Morro Bay will go into
effect in July, despite opposition from a group that earlier
claimed it got enough protest signatures to stop the rate hike.
Morro Bay City Manager Scott Collins clarified in a recent
report that the protest was unsuccessful and the measure will
go into effect with customers seeing the additional charge on
their August bill.
The City of Chico has seen a population explosion,
and it’s not just the roads that are impacted. Post-Camp
Fire sewage production numbers are at an all-time
high. Before the fire, Chico’s wastewater treatment
facility processed about 6 million gallons of waste on average
per day. Since then that amount has gone up to 7 million.
Biosolid production has gone up 70%, while overall waste and
sewage flows are up 17%.
California’s Imperial Irrigation District will get the
last word on the seven-state Colorado River Drought Contingency
Plans. And IID could end up with $200 million to restore the
badly polluted and fast-drying Salton Sea. Thursday, as the
clock ticked toward a midnight deadline set by a top federal
official, all eyes had been on Arizona. But lawmakers there
approved the Colorado River drought deal with about seven hours
to spare. IID, an often-overlooked southeastern California
agricultural water district, appears to have thrown a
last-minute monkey wrench into the process.
Sonoma County water officials, under order from the state to
improve the capacity of their sewage system, say a valve
malfunction and leaky pipes resulted in a string of spills this
month that released 2.7 million gallons of waste and
stormwater, some of which flowed into local creeks and San
Pablo Bay.
Technology already exists to treat reused water to levels
meeting or exceeding health standards. But adequate technical
capacity is not sufficient. Water reuse can trigger revulsion,
especially when water is reused for drinking or other potable
purposes. This note explores outreach and engagement strategies
to overcome the “yuck factor” and achieve public support for
water reuse.
For decades, the New River has flowed north across the
U.S.-Mexico border carrying toxic pollution and the stench of
sewage. Now lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento are pursuing
legislation and funding to combat the problems. “I feel very
optimistic that we’re going to be able to get some things done
on the New River issue,” said Assemblymember Eduardo
Garcia.
