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
Seeking to squeeze more value out of wastewater, the Palo Alto
City Council approved on May 13 the construction of a
$63-million salt-removing plant in the Baylands. Known as the
Local Advanced Water Purification System, the plant will go up
at the periphery of the Regional Water Quality Control Plant,
the industrial facility at 2501 Embarcadero Way that serves
Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford
University and the East Palo Alto Sanitary District. It will
consist of three structures: a 30-foot-tall storage tank, an
open-air building and a prefabricated building. They would go
up at the northwest side of the regional plant, next to
Embarcadero Road. Unlike other advanced purification systems,
the new Palo Alto plant will not make wastewater safe for
drinking.
A 53-year-old Tracy man has been sentenced to six months of
home confinement for a cyber attack on the Discovery Bay Water
Treatment Facility in 2021, prosecutors said. The sentence
was handed down on May 8, according to the U.S. Attorney’s
Office. A federal grand jury indicted Rambler Gallo last
June, charging him with a single felony count of
transmitting a program, information, code and command to cause
damage to a protected computer, prosecutors said. Gallo pleaded
guilty to the charge. Gallo was a full-time employee for a
Massachusetts-based company that contracted with Discovery Bay
to operate the town’s water treatment plant, which serves
15,000 residents.
Many Los Angeles residents will see their sewer fees double
over the next four years, with the City Council approving the
increases Tuesday over the objections of business groups
concerned that landlords will be disproportionately affected.
The council voted 11 to 4 for the rate hikes, with
Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Kevin de León, Imelda Padilla
and Heather Hutt dissenting. The increases are needed to fund
the rising cost of construction and materials, officials with
the Bureau of Sanitation said. The officials said that labor
costs will rise 24% over the next five years because of a
recent salary package for city workers backed by Mayor Karen
Bass and the council.
Dow Chemical and Shell USA are facing a negligence suit in
California federal court by the city of Pomona, alleging the
companies are responsible for manufacturing commercial products
containing the toxic 1,2,3-trichloropropane that has migrated
into the city’s water supply and seeking to recoup costs over
response efforts. …
An unusual surge in flu viruses detected at wastewater
treatment plants in California and other parts of the country
is raising concerns among some experts that H5N1 bird flu may
be spreading farther and faster than health officers initially
thought. In the last several weeks, wastewater surveillance at
59 of 190 U.S. municipal and regional sewage plants has
revealed an out-of-season spike in influenza A flu viruses — a
category that also includes H5N1. The testing — which is
intended to monitor the prevalence of “normal” flu viruses that
affect humans — has also shown a moderate to high upward trend
at 40 sites across California, including San Francisco, Oakland
and San Diego. Almost every city tested in the Bay Area shows
moderate to high increases of type A viruses.
Beyond a chain-link fence topped with spiraled barbed wire,
swaying coastal grasses conceal a cache of buried radioactive
waste and toxic pesticides from a bygone chemical plant.
Warning signs along the Richmond, Calif., site’s perimeter
attempt to discourage trespassers from breaching the locked
gates, where soil testing has detected cancer-causing gamma
radiation more than 60 times higher than background levels in
some places. For most of the 20th century, the former
Stauffer Chemical Co. disposed of thousands of tons of
industrial waste near its factory grounds along Richmond’s
southeast shoreline. … In a January letter to Albany and
Berkeley city officials, [the State Water Board] wrote
that the landfills “may have accepted industrial waste
materials that could present a risk to water quality, human
health, and the environment.”
Despite the prevailing dry conditions in warmer months, the
Sacramento Valley and the north Delta have remained free of
harmful algal bloom (HAB) detections—a testament to our
proactive monitoring and mitigation efforts. As we continue to
closely watch over these waterways and utilize the latest
technology, we’re committed to keeping our communities safe and
our ecosystems thriving. With warmer temperatures and summer
recreation at California freshwater lakes and rivers on the
horizon, it is time for Californians to be vigilant about the
dangers posed by freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms
(HABs). According to the California Department of Water
Resources (DRW), algal blooms can release toxins into the water
which have the potential to significantly harm both people and
pets. It can also create hypoxia which impacts fish
populations.
After more than an hour of discussion, which included the
addition of some new conditions of approval by staff as well as
public comments both in opposition and support, the California
Coastal Commission unanimously approved the project. In
granting the Harbor District’s permit application, the
commission cleared away one of the last remaining
administrative hurdles for Nordic Aquafarms’ proposed
fish-production factory on the Samoa Peninsula. The coastal
development permit will allow the Harbor District to upgrade
its seawater intake infrastructure in Humboldt Bay, install new
underground water pipelines along the bay, perform a variety of
environmental mitigation activities and, eventually, withdraw
up to 11.8 million gallons of water per day for tenants in the
future National Marine Research and Innovation Park.
Bureaucratic blunders, mismanagement, partisan politics,
cross-border politics, understaffing, equipment failures. The
list of reasons for the longstanding sewage crisis at the
U.S.-Mexico border is long. At the center is the International
Boundary and Water Commission, the binational agency
responsible for preventing water pollution in the Tijuana River
and southern San Diego County shorelines. It has been severely
handicapped in its task. The result: beach closures due to
contaminated ocean water, economic losses and growing concerns
about the long-term health impacts caused by breathing,
smelling and touching sewage-tainted water. Each country is
represented by a commissioner appointed by their respective
presidents. Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner, appointed by
President Joe Biden in 2021, inherited the broken system. She’s
been trying to steer the federal agency in the right direction
ever since.
A lawsuit by the mining company with contracts to extract more
than 50 million tons of aggregate from Soledad Canyon has been
continued to July, according to court records. Cemex, a
multinational building materials company, is suing the State
Water Resources Control Board over the company’s application
for the rights to use the Santa Clara River. The State
Water Board said last year Cemex’s application would be
publicly re-noticed, after pressure from state lawmakers who
sought legislation to force the board to re-notice the request
to use the river to mine. When Cemex appealed the decision
to re-notice and the State Water Board denied that appeal,
Cemex sued in September, stating its application “has already
lingered since the first Bush administration.”
For the past 101 years, the cows on [the Mulas Dairy
farm] near San Pablo Bay were milked twice a day. In
recent years, that meant you’d hear the loud hum of vacuum
pumps running from midnight to 7 a.m. and again from noon to 7
p.m. … [Farm president Mike] Mulas was standing near a
drainage ditch on the east side of his 800-acre Schellville
property. The shallow stormwater trench runs through part of
the farm and empties into a field, not far from a network of
creeks that flow into San Pablo Bay. It was a major point of
contention in a lawsuit filed over alleged water quality
violations in early 2023. … For the North Bay’s
struggling dairy industry, it could also be read as another
signpost of the new era. In an age where some environmental
groups take to the courts in higher numbers, going after farms
they allege are polluting surrounding watersheds, many
struggling family farms simply can’t put up a fight anymore.
The federal and state governments accused San Francisco on
Wednesday of discharging huge amounts of untreated wastewater
and sewage into the bay and the ocean for many years, violating
environmental laws and endangering beach-goers and aquatic
life. … And they said it’s been getting worse: In the rainy
season from October 2022 to March 2023, more than 4 billion
gallons were spewed into the waters. The lawsuit seeks
court orders requiring the city to change its practices, and
hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties to be paid to the
federal and state governments.
Coronado lifeguards use leak-proof dry suits for open water
rescues. Imperial Beach lifeguards decontaminate in showers
after leaving the ocean. And both have ditched jet skis for the
protection offered by boats. These aren’t new equipment
standards.They are tools the two South County departments have
rolled out independently to protect themselves from daily
exposure to polluted, sewage-tainted waters. No safety
standards exist for lifeguards who come into contact with
contaminated water while trying to save lives.
The water in Imperial Beach could soon be much cleaner. A
legislative package protecting the Tijuana River Watershed was
passed by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee Wednesday.
The two bills address corporate pollution tainting California’s
water supply. Companies responsible for sewage, garbage and
chemicals that are spilling over from south of the border and
contaminating the waters of San Diego could soon be held
accountable by having to pay fines depending on how much waste
they improperly dump.
The Del Norte City Council approved long-awaited Renovations on
the Wastewater Treat Plant (WWTP). The WWTP is operated via
contract with Jacobs Engineering. Jacobs Staff were on hand in
the audience and via Zoom to address technical questions by
councilors and the Public. The Resolution for amending the
agreement with the California State Water Resources Control
Board (SWRCB) amends the financial arrangements between the
City and the SWRCB. A second Resolution approved amending the
City budget for fiscal year 2023-24.
… California has some of the tightest toxic regulations and
strictest air pollution rules for smelters in the country. But
some residents of the suburban neighborhoods around Ecobat
don’t trust the system to protect them. … Uncertainty,
both about the safety of Ecobat’s operation going forward and
the legacy of lead it has left behind, weighs heavily on them.
… Early on, environmental officials flagged reasons for
concern about the lead smelter. State and federal regulators
issued an order and a consent decree in 1987 because of the
facility’s releases of hazardous waste into soil and water. An
assessment from that time found “high potential for air
releases of particulates concerning lead.”
Palo Alto’s bioreactor towers are aging out, like a lot of the
clean water infrastructure constructed around the Bay Area in
the 1950s-1970s. Recent wind gusts, swirling around the edges
of February’s atmospheric river storms, have not been friendly
to the towers either. On a March visit to the Palo Alto
Regional Water Quality Control Plant, which treats 18 million
gallons of wastewater every day, I could see a big chunk
missing from the wall of one rusty cauldron and tumbleweeds
caught in the metalwork. Elsewhere on the 25-acre site,
the plant’s facilities are visibly undergoing a $193 million
overhaul. The overhaul will help the plant meet increasing
regulatory limits on the amount of nitrogen that dischargers
can pipe into the shallows of San Francisco Bay.
Plumas County recently commissioned an independent review of
vested mining rights for the Engels-Superior Mines, situated in
the county. Best Best & Krieger LLP (BBK), a prominent law
firm, undertook this investigation, posting its findings in a
detailed memorandum on April 15, 2024. The memorandum addresses
a request by California-Engels Mining Company (owner) and US
Copper Corp (applicant). This request pertains to the Engels
Mine and Superior Mine located in Indian Valley on the Feather
River watershed. The memorandum, accessible on the Plumas
County Zoning Administrator website, illuminates the historical
context and legal intricacies surrounding the mining
operations. It discusses five determinations sought by the
applicant, including the mining history, vesting date, extent
of mining, continuity of mining rights, and intent to continue
mining.
The Metropolitan Water District plans to spend up to $250
million on four non-traditional water projects that, combined,
could supply up to 100,000 Southern California households over
the next few years. Wastewater recycling, rainwater reclamation
and transforming ocean water into drinking water are some of
the technologies that could get money in the coming wave of
funding from MWD. The Los Angeles-based wholesaler, which helps
transfer water from Northern California and the Colorado River
to 26 retail water districts in the Los Angeles region, has
spent about $700 million on smaller, non-traditional water
projects since launching its Local Resources Program in 1990.
The amounts announced Monday, April 15, represent some of MWD’s
biggest investments in water innovation to date.
The International Boundary and Water Commission is again being
sued over water-quality permit violations that have led to
rampant sewage polluting San Diego County’s southernmost
shoreline. The San Diego Coastkeeper and Coastal Environmental
Rights Foundation on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court
against the U.S. arm of the IBWC and its contractor Veolia
Water North America-West, alleging violations of the Clean
Water Act.
As the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities
continue to increase the levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, the ocean is absorbing a large portion of the CO2,
which is making seawater more acidic. … And here’s one
important fact about ocean acidification: It’s not happening at
the same rate everywhere. The California coast is one of the
regions of the world where ocean acidification
is occurring the fastest. … In particular, effluent
discharged from coastal sewage treatment plants, which has high
nitrogen levels from human waste, has been shown to
significantly contribute to ocean acidification off the
Southern California coast.
The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) begins
construction this month to install a trash capture device along
northbound State Route 99, preventing trash in storm water
runoff from entering the Tuolumne River at Zeff Road. The trash
capture system will be located at the inlet of two existing
culverts on the southeast side of SR-99 and the Tuolumne River,
a location identified as a significant trash generating area.
The project will help the department achieve zero trash from
stormwater discharge into the lower reaches of the Tuolumne
River. It is consistent with the Caltrans’ Statewide Trash
Implementation plan and in compliance with the State Water
Resource Control Board water quality objectives for trash
pollutants.
Think “Sonoma County farm,” and most people will conjure an
image of docile cows chewing cud or chickens scratching the
dirt, idly whiling away their days among the grassy, green
hills of this mostly rural, coastal Northern California county.
But animal rights activists say all is not right in this region
known for its wine and farm-to-fork sensibilities. They say
there are two dozen large, concentrated animal farming
operations — which collectively house almost 3 million animals
— befouling watersheds and torturing livestock and poultry in
confined lots and cages. And in an effort to stop it, they’ve
collected more than 37,000 signatures from Sonoma County
residents to put an end to it — forcing the county Board of
Supervisors to either enact or match the ordinance themselves,
or have it kicked over to the November ballot.
Momentum is building for a unique
interstate deal that aims to transform wastewater from Southern
California homes and business into relief for the stressed
Colorado River. The collaborative effort to add resiliency to a
river suffering from overuse, drought and climate change is being
shaped across state lines by some of the West’s largest water
agencies.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In rural areas with widely dispersed houses, reliance upon a
centralized
sewer system is not practical compared to individual
wastewater treatment methods. These on-site management facilities
– or septic systems – are more commonplace given their simpler
structure, efficiency and easy maintenance.
Microplastics – plastic debris
measuring less than 5 millimeters – are an
increasing water quality concern. Entering the water as
industrial microbeads or as larger plastic litter that degrade
into small pellets, microplastics come from a variety of
consumer products.
Directly detecting harmful pathogens in water can be expensive,
unreliable and incredibly complicated. Fortunately, certain
organisms are known to consistently coexist with these harmful
microbes which are substantially easier to detect and culture:
coliform bacteria. These generally non-toxic organisms are
frequently used as “indicator
species,” or organisms whose presence demonstrates a
particular feature of its surrounding environment.
The biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of water determines the
impact of decaying matter on species in a specific ecosystem.
Sampling for BOD tests how much oxygen is needed by bacteria to
break down the organic matter.
Point sources release pollutants from discrete conveyances, such
as a discharge pipe, and are regulated by federal and state
agencies. The main point source dischargers are factories and
sewage treatment plants, which release treated
wastewater.
This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current
state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an
overview of the geography and history of the river, historical
and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of
the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was
agreed to.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to California
Wastewater is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the history of wastewater
treatment and how wastewater is collected, conveyed, treated and
disposed of today. The guide also offers case studies of
different treatment plants and their treatment processes.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
Wastewater management in California centers on the collection,
conveyance,
treatment, reuse and disposal of wastewater. This process is
conducted largely by public agencies, though there are also
private systems in places where a publicly owned treatment plant
is not feasible.
In California, wastewater treatment takes place through 100,000
miles of sanitary sewer lines and at more than 900 wastewater
treatment plants that manage the roughly 4 billion gallons of
wastewater generated in the state each day.