United Water tells City of Santa Paula to get new wastewater project moving
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published: January 17, 2007
The United Water Conservation District has a message for the City of Santa Paula: the time is already far past for any more delays when it comes to a new wastewater treatment plant.
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula Times
The United Water Conservation District has a message for the City of Santa Paula: the time is already far past for any more delays when it comes to a new wastewater treatment plant.
The UWCD Board of Directors voted at their January 10 meeting to send a letter to Mayor Ray Luna noting that the agency will “vigorously oppose” any delay beyond the timelines in the city’s waiver agreement with the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB).
UWCD, headquartered in Santa Paula, is responsible for maintaining and protecting the resources of the Santa Clara River, its tributaries and associated aquifers.
Its authority reaches from Piru to the coast and the Oxnard Plain - about 334 square miles - and UWCD serves about 325,000 customers living in cities and unincorporated cities.
UWCD also delivers potable water to the City of Oxnard and the Port Hueneme Water Agency.
The city has been under a strict timeline imposed by the RWQCB to clean up its plant discharges that included a caveat that the city could use the state imposed fines - about $8 million and subject to increases - towards a new plant.
The UWCD letter, signed by Chairman Roger Orr, noted that the district had “reluctantly supported a waiver of penalties proposed” by the RWQCB resulting from the city not advancing activities necessary to eliminate discharge of “serious pollutants” into the Santa Clara River.
“Please understand that the entire population downstream of your city relies substantially on,” river waters that form the single largest source of groundwater recharge and direct agricultural supply in the Oxnard Plain.
“Bringing your wastewater practices up to modern standards is accordingly of a paramount importance for the health and economy of western Ventura County, and has been so some decades now. With the recent issue of e-coli contamination of food crops, growers who rely on river water for irrigation are even more urgently concerned about protecting the quality of water,” wrote Orr.
The City Council first learned that the RWQCB was serious about penalties four years ago - the deal to apply the fines to a new plant was brokered by then Mayor John Procter - and since then has been scrambling to meet the deadline, which was extended to 2009.
The city studied a regional plant with Fillmore and numerous alternative methods of treatment, conducted site visits for Council members, and approved the project EIR in early 2005, deciding on membrane bioreactor technology.
Although the City Council was poised to cut the contract for a new estimated $60 million wastewater treatment plant at the Jan. 3 meeting, newly seated Councilmen Ralph Fernandez and Bob Gonzales asked that the city wait for a presentation on Vertreat technology.
If the Council switched gears it would require a new EIR and prolong the project one year or longer.
“UWCD doesn’t care what the technology the city uses but we want the city to move on...quickly,” said UWCD General Manager Dana Wisehart. Vertreat technology appears to be valid although Wisehart said there are questionable aspects - both technical and practical - to it.
“It’s natural for us to wonder why it is not used here. New technology should be tried but UWCD is not sure if the City of Santa Paula should be the demonstration project for America. And we’re not sure if in the end it will meet the requirements” for reclaiming and reusing discharged water as well as meeting chloride restrictions, among other technical issues.
“These are all unknowns to us and we assume also unknowns to the City of Santa Paula...and getting to know them will take time,” a commodity that the city is almost out of.
The city’s “Public Works division should be commended for their thorough analysis of the technologies to date,” that early on included a review of Vertreat technology. “UWCD thinks city staff’s recommendations ought to be supported, Cliff Finley and staff spent a lot of time looking into it” noted Wisehart.
“I too would like for us to expedite the design and construction of a new plant,” but Luna said he doubts that it will be Vertreat technology.
“My concern is - and will be until proven otherwise - that the regulatory guidelines of the State of California are second to none” and that the RWQCB “will not accept new things at this time, look at this as a delay tactic and just start pouring on the fines. If there was a Vertreat domestic waste water treatment plant in California there might have been a chance.”
Luna noted that “Mr. Finley and his staff has been working very hard to make sure that we’re getting exactly what Santa Paula’s needs are going to be in the future.”
The Value Engineering report took a “close look at different types of systems. I understand the frustration Mr. Orr has, and I share that frustration and concern with him. The city has been aggressively working on this in the last few years and it’s important for us to do this now. Other cities that constructed their plants at approximately the same time we did - 1939 - now have to deal with the same issues” and are also building new plants.
“I agree with Mr. Orr: we need to protect our groundwater for the agriculture that is vital to our economy,” said Luna. “The Council has now set a deadline for us to work together and get this plant built.”
|
