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
A smoldering chemical reaction brewing deep inside the recently
closed Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic now threatens to
consume an entire 160-acre canyon of buried waste, endangering
a storage area for hazardous liquid waste, according to state
officials. … State regulators worry that damage to the
tank farm would cause chemical-laden leachate to spill onto the
landfill’s surface and potentially into nearby sources of
water. State agencies have ordered Waste Connections to
relocate the tank farm to prevent hazardous chemicals from
seeping into groundwater or spilling into
storm drains that feed into the Santa Clara River.
A flash fire at the San Jose-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater
Facility prompted an emergency response on Tuesday, but no
serious injuries were reported, authorities said. The fire was
reported at 10:20 a.m. at the treatment plant on Los Esoteros
Road north of Highway 237, according to statement from the San
Jose’s Environmental Services Department. Two workers were
in an enclosed area at the facility and working with
unspecified chemicals when an aerosol ignited, resulting in a
small fire, the department said. The workers’ protective
gear spared them from being injured, the department
said. The San Jose Fire Department was summoned to the
site, and the two affected workers were given an “all clear”
later in the morning.
A clearer path forward could be emerging in the tiny Tulare
County community of East Orosi, which has long struggled with
contaminated drinking water, a decrepit sewer system and
dysfunction among elected leaders. The state Water Resources
Control Board will be in town Thursday, April 17 to explain why
it proposes that the community’s sewer system be run by a new
administrator, the Tulare County Resource Management Agency
(RMA). … The proposed sewer administration change is a result
of Assembly Bill 805, authored by Dr. Joaquin Arambula
(D-Fresno) and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in
September in the backyard of an East Orosi resident. The
bill authorizes the state Water Board to intervene when a sewer
service provider does not meet regulatory standards or fails to
maintain the technical, managerial and financial capacity
needed to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. The Water Board can
then contract with a new administrator.
The Trump administration plans to increase “regulatory
flexibility” for oil and gas companies trying to find ways to
dispose of copious amounts of toxic wastewater. … Fracking
generates massive quantities of this toxic wastewater that
companies are struggling to manage. … Under the Environmental
Protection Agency’s current rule, discharges of produced water
are more restricted in the Eastern United States than in the
arid West. The agency announced last week that it will revise
that regulation to “help unleash American energy.” Among
the items it’s considering: expanding the geographic range
where treated oilfield wastewater can be discharged into rivers
and streams. The EPA also said it will review new
opportunities for using treated wastewater for industrial and
agricultural applications, including for artificial
intelligence and data center cooling, and to irrigate
rangeland.
Residents have until 5 p.m. April 11 to submit comments on the
proposed renewal of the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System at the Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant,
6040 Vaca Station Road. Treated wastewater is discharged to Old
Alamo Creek, a tributary of New Alamo Creek, Ulatis Creek,
Cache Creek Slough and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. …
The tentative order includes updated effluent limitations for
ammonia nitrogen, nitrate plus nitrite, dichlorobromomethane,
dibromochloromethane, and cyanide. It removes effluent
limitations for acute whole effluent toxicity and electrical
conductivity.
National parks are struggling with an $877 million backlog of
plumbing problems at restrooms and wastewater facilities with a
shortfall of workers needed to make repairs, according to an
audit released last week by the Interior Department’s inspector
general. Moreover, the park system — which hosted 332 million
visits last year at more than 400 sites — also lacks a system
to track critical wastewater hazards identified by NPS’ Office
of Public Health, the report said. The Office of Inspector
General surveyed 30 public health assessments for parks and
found 87 critical-level deficiencies such as permit violations
for sewage discharges, wastewater spills and other
problems.
Millions of gallons of raw sewage spilled from a construction
site in Tijuana and found its way into San Diego County early
Sunday. The spill came after a few days of rain already flushed
the polluted Tijuana River Valley. … The international
collector is a new pipeline meant to deliver raw sewage to
wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. and Mexico. Tijuana
crews are currently installing a bypass to prevent sewage from
escaping while the new collector is put online. An IBWC
spokesman confirmed something happened early Sunday morning but
could not elaborate.
Veolia Water North America-West, the federal government’s
contractor tasked with maintaining its wastewater treatment
plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, is the subject of a new
lawsuit alleging failure to contain crossborder sewage. On
Monday, the Coronado Unified School District sued the plant
operator and its former manager, Mark Wippler, marking the
first time a school district joins local municipalities,
environmental groups and homeowners that are suing and
previously sued the international engineering company and
federal government. San Diego-based Frantz Law Group, which
opened a mass tort case late last year over similar claims, is
representing the school district. It’s unclear whether other
South County school districts may join or follow suit.
… El Paso’s Pure Water Center, which will go online by 2028, is
the first direct-to-distribution reuse facility in the country.
Treating wastewater for reuse as drinking water has long been
controversial. But as the technology has advanced and water
resources dwindle, more cities are exploring direct
reuse. El Paso is the first out of the gate, but Phoenix
and Tucson are expected to follow suit. Elsewhere in Texas,
communities from the Panhandle to the Hill Country are
considering their own
facilities. Colorado and California recently
adopted rules to regulate the treatment technology.
Researchers from San Diego State University are launching the
second phase of a survey as they study the effects of pollution
on Tijuana River Valley residents. For decades, the Valley has
been plagued by untreated sewage flows that originate in
Mexico. The Tijuana River not only carries the effluent, but
also large quantities of chemicals and other pollutants into
the U.S. side of the border and the Tijuana River Valley. In
recent years, the contamination has gotten worse as Tijuana’s
sewage infrastructure has collapsed and is constantly sending
millions of gallons of raw sewage north of the border. On a
daily basis, the stench can be overwhelming.
The El Centro City Council approved an upgrade to the
disinfection system at the city’s wastewater treatment plant on
Tuesday, Feb. 19, at City Hall. “Ultraviolet light disinfection
is the last treatment process to eliminate any remaining
bacteria in wastewater before it is released,” Public
Works Director and City Engineer Abraham Campos said. The
UV-treated water is discharged into the Imperial Irrigation
District’s drainage system and ultimately into the Salton Sea,
according to city documents. The existing UV lamps, which
have been in use for the past 15 years, will no longer be
serviceable as manufacturers and current part suppliers are
transitioning to a new system.
… A spokesperson for the State of Baja California said the
San Antonio de los Buenos wastewater treatment plant is nearing
completion. The plant has been offline and dumping more than 17
million gallons of raw sewage a day directly into the Pacific
Ocean for several years. That raw sewage flows north and has
forced the County of San Diego to use the yellow signs from the
border to the IB Pier for most of that time. There have been
long stretches when the water has been off limits all the way
up to Coronado Beach. Mexico began fixing its plant at the
beginning of 2024. They said it would be ready by last
September. That was five months ago. Last week, Dr. Maria-Elena
Giner, the International Boundary and Water Commission
commissioner, said it was finally done.
A wastewater treatment plant being built six miles south of the
border continues to be plagued by delays in construction and
now, per a Border Report investigation, design flaws.
Originally, the facility was supposed to open last September,
but five months later, its future remains in limbo. A source
familiar with the plant’s design says initial test-runs have
failed due to the type of pumps set in place during
construction. He tells Border Report water pumps were installed
instead of pumps required for mud, thick fluids and
sediment. … Most of (Imperial Beach’s) beaches have been
closed for more than two years due to sewage pollution that
flows in from Mexico.
Cities across California and the Southwest are significantly
increasing and diversifying their use of recycled wastewater as
traditional water supplies grow tighter.
The 5th edition of our Layperson’s Guide to Water Recycling
covers the latest trends and statistics on water reuse as a
strategic defense against prolonged drought and climate change.
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. They enter waterways and
oceans as industrial microbeads from various consumer
products or larger plastic litter that degrades into small bits.
Microbeads have been used in exfoliating agents, cosmetic washes
and large-scale cleaning processes. Microplastics are used
pharmaceutically for efficient drug delivery to affected sites in
patients’ bodies and by textile companies to create artificial
fibers.
Microplastics disperse easily and widely throughout surface waters and sediments. UV
light, microbes and erosion degrade the tiny fragments, making
them even smaller and more difficult for wastewater treatment
plants to remove.
The particles, usually made of polyethylene or polypropylene
plastic, take thousands of years to biodegrade
naturally. It takes prohibitively high temperatures to
break microplastics down fully. Consequently, most water treatment plants cannot remove
them.
The health effects of consumption are currently under
investigation.
Responses
Many advocacy groups have published lists of products containing
microbeads to curb their purchase and pollution.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates microbeads in
industrial, but not domestic, wastewater.
Federal
law required microbeads to be phased out of rinse-off
cosmetics beginning in July 2017. Dozens of states also
regulate microbeads in products. California has the strictest
limitation, prohibiting even the use of biodegradable microbeads.
Microplastics in California Water
In 2019, the San Francisco Estuary Institute published a
study estimating that 7 trillion pieces of microplastic
enter San Francisco
Bay annually from stormwater runoff, about 300
times the amount in all wastewater treatment effluent entering
the bay.
California lawmakers in 2018 passed a package of bills to raise
awareness of the risks of microplastics and microfibers in the
marine environment and drinking water. As
directed by the legislation, the State Water Resources Control
Board in 2020 adopted an official
definition of microplastics in drinking water and in 2022
developed the world’s standardized methods for testing drinking
water for microplastics.
The water board was expected by late 2023 to begin testing
for microplastics in untreated drinking water sources tapped by
30 of the state’s largest water utilities. After two years, the
testing was expected to extend to treated tap water served
to consumers. A progress report and recommendations for
policy changes or additional research are required by the end of
2025.
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.
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.
