Tag: wastewater overflow

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, WaterTags , , , , , ,

Santa Rosa wastewater quandary linked to Kincade fire could get worse as rainy season ramps up

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

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.

As a result, by February city water officials anticipate nearing maximum capacity at the plant’s storage ponds, forcing them to release treated effluent into the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa, a step that would put customers on the hook for an estimated $400,000 in environmental charges.

The wastewater quandary is one of the lingering repercussions of the county’s largest ever wildfire, which scorched about 77,000 acres and more than 170 homes after igniting near a faulty PG&E transmission line in late October.

A clearer picture of its impact on The Geysers geothermal field — the complex of power plants near where the fire erupted — and the city’s wastewater system, which sends most of its recycled daily output to The Geysers, emerged over the past several weeks in public records and in interviews with city water staff and representatives of PG&E and Calpine, which operates most of the power plants.

PG&E has restored power to most of the lines that went down due to the Kincade fire, but it is still weeks away from reactivating the transmission line where equipment broke shortly before the start of the wildfire, a PG&E spokeswoman said.

That same high-voltage line previously powered the city-owned pumps that deliver water about 40 miles from Santa Rosa’s Laguna Wastewater Plant to The Geysers as part of the city’s wastewater disposal system, in operation since 2003.

Without electricity from that line, Santa Rosa found itself sidelined for six weeks — without the ability to pump the 15 million gallons of wastewater it regularly sends per day on average to help sustain steam power at The Geysers, said Joe Schwall, the city’s deputy director of water reuse operations. The Laguna Road plant is one of the largest sewer operations in the North Bay, serving more than 200,000  people not just in Santa Rosa but in Rohnert Park, Cotati, Sebastopol and parts of Sonoma County.

Read more at: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10513689-181/santa-rosa-wastewater-quandary-linked

Author SuzannePosted on Categories WaterTags , ,

Occidental has a big wastewater dilemma to resolve

Tom Gogola, THE BOHEMIAN

New rate increases for the Occidental Sanitation District underscore an old problem: the West County outpost is a small and underfunded district that has no wastewater disposal system of its own.

The Sonoma County Water Agency recently announced that it had approved routine rate increases for eight districts and zones that provide sewer service to more than 18,000 properties throughout the county. In a release, it says the increases will pay for maintenance and operations, and for $50 million in capital improvements to sewer collection and treatment centers in the affected districts.

None of the capital improvements are coming to Occidental, however, which has faced a wastewater-removal conundrum for two decades.

Among the proposed uses of the new revenue coming from consumers and businesses: The Geyserville district will get new aerators at its wastewater treatment facility; there’s proposed funding for a flood resiliency project in Penngrove; sewer-main projects are planned for Sonoma Valley and the Airport/Larkfield/Wikiup zone; and other improvements are afoot in the Russian River and South Park districts.

The districts’ rates are being increased from between 3.5 and 5 percent which, in and of itself, is neither controversial nor widely opposed by the impacted ratepayers, says SCWA principal programs specialist Barry Dugan. California’s Proposition 218 requires public notification and explanations behind proposed rate hikes such as the ones approved by the SCWA board last week. If more than 50 percent of respondents reject the new rate, it doesn’t pass. Fewer than 2 percent of 18,0000 impacted citizens wrote in to protest the new rate.

A review of the breakout of opponents doesn’t show any one district or another having outsized levels of opposition to the new rates. Indeed, as Dugan points out in an interview, there’s almost exactly the same number of opponents to this year’s increase (217) to last year’s (216).

If there’s any controversy it’s with Occidental’s chronic wastewater conundrum and what to do about it. A handful of Occidental resident disapproved of the rate increases, in a town that’s in a uniquely tough spot when it comes to wastewater removal: It’s a very small district with only 100 ratepayers that’s been underfunded for years, says Dugan, and that pays among the highest sanitation rates of any district in the state—if not the highest rate, suggests Dugan.

Read more at https://www.bohemian.com/northbay/occidentals-discharge/Content?oid=8829378

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sustainable Living, WaterTags , , ,

Heavy rains cause Sonoma Valley wastewater overflows

Sonoma County Water Agency, SONOMA COUNTY GAZETTE
Heavy rainfall from a large atmospheric river resulted in several wastewater overflows within the Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District (District). Nearly 2 inches of rain was measured during a 24-hour period ending Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Sonoma Valley wastewater treatment plant. Other areas of the valley reported 3 inches of rain overnight.
Wastewater maintenance and work crews, including biologists, responded to nine separate sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) starting at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. Sanitation District staff are working to minimize the flows as much as possible, evaluate any impacts to public and environmental health, and will continue to monitor the collection systems.  The State Office of Emergency Services and California Department of Fish & Wildlife were notified.
The majority of the SSOs occurred in the Boyes Hot Springs and Fetters Hot Springs areas, with two overflows in Eldridge. Several of the overflows resulted in wastewater flowing into Sonoma Creek. One reported SSO at the Sonoma Charter School and Flowery Elementary School campus was determined to be a private overflow resulting from a failure of the collection system on school district property. Total volume of the overflows will be calculated at the end of the storm event.
During heavy rain events the District’s wastewater collection system can become overloaded due to inflow and infiltration of rainwater and groundwater into sewer mains. The District is currently implementing a multi-year sewer main replacement project. Another contributing factor to SSOs, which is being addressed by the District, is leaky private sewer laterals and illegal connections of roof downspouts, yard drains, sump pumps and other non-sewer discharges into the sewer system that can greatly increase the amount of wastewater entering the system during storms. The SVSCD Board recently approved an ordinance that will require older laterals to be inspected and repaired, if necessary.
Read more at: Heavy Rains Cause Sonoma Valley Wastewater Overflows