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
Rep. John Duarte (R-Hughson) was in Turlock, as well as other
Central Valley communities, on Monday to deliver Community
Project Funding checks — as part of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2024 — that totaled about $11 million.
Turlock received $1.2 million for its Golden State Boulevard
sewer-extension project, and $1 million for the city’s
stormwater infrastructure project. … Turlock’s Golden State
sewer-extension project focuses on extending an 18-inch
diameter sewer main near Taylor Road. The extension, according
to the city, will provide utility services to an unserved area
of Stanislaus County currently on wells and septic
tanks. The other project — the Positive Drainage Project —
involves replacement and upsizing of 1,120 feet of pipe in the
city to create a positive drainage system that would increase
flood capacity and alleviate flooding concerns.
A special workshop on the binational sewage crisis was held
Wednesday in Imperial Beach. The meeting featured a panel of
experts from various government agencies and academic
institutions. Dozens of concerned residents gathered at the
special council workshop addressing the ongoing sewage crisis.
They heard from the International Boundary and Water Commission
shed light on cross-border sewage flows. … Scripps
Institution of Oceanography offered valuable insights into the
environmental impact of sewage contamination, while SDSU School
of Public Health discussed risks associated with chemical and
biological pollutants in water, air, and soil.
At least $11 billion would be needed to upgrade wastewater
treatment facilities across the Bay Area if regulators impose
anticipated stricter environmental rules, according to a
regional water board that seeks to protect the San Francisco
Bay. The upgrades at dozens of sewage treatment plants,
needed to prevent toxic algae blooms and protect fish, would
cost an average of $4,000 per household, and consumers may end
up funding the improvements. The key culprit? Nitrogen
found in urine and fecal matter, which feeds the growth of
algae.
CBS 8 is Working for You to get to the bottom of water billing
problems in the City of San Diego. It’s been four months since
Mission Hills homeowner Ken Perilli received a notice in the
mail that his water bills were being withheld, pending an
investigation by the city of San Diego into “abnormal water
use.” “The first reaction is to panic that you have a leak
under a slab, and that you’re going to be facing an expensive
plumbing repair bill,” said Perilli. He called a plumber and
checked for water leaks, but nothing seemed abnormal. “I
investigated the abnormal reading. And you can see that there
is dirt in front of the meter. So, the abnormal reading is that
there was no reading taken, I believe,” said Perilli. On
the social media site Next Door, Perilli said he found dozens
of similar complaints by neighbors.
Years after a massive spill at a Los Angeles water treatment
facility dumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the
Pacific, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency have ordered several improvements at the plant to help
prevent another such disaster, even when facing more intense
storms from a changing climate. The administrative order of
consent, issued this month, requires the Hyperion Water
Reclamation Plant in Playa del Rey to make significant fixes to
its operations and infrastructure, including improving
monitoring systems and overflow channels, after the federal
agency’s review of the 2021 spill. The agreement, between the
EPA and the Los Angeles Sanitation and Environment division,
mandates the updates be implemented by the end of 2025, though
some are required to be completed as soon as within 30 days,
according to the order.
California wineries appear to be complying with the Water
Board’s statewide Winery General Order’s winery wastewater
requirements, but the pace is slow, state statistics reveal.
And many are not in the compliance reporting pipeline at all,
data shows. (An overview page is provided here.) The order was
passed, the water boards said, for two major reasons. One was
because, “Winemakers requested the order to address the
statewide inconsistencies in permitting.” This request was from
large wineries that operate numerous facilities throughout the
state. (Smaller wineries opposed this in the public
hearings.) … As of Feb. 20, 2024, 201 wineries had
begun the process of filing, leaving a gap of 1,449 wineries
(the difference between 1,650 and 201, based on the initial
estimates).
Chevron has agreed to pay more than $13 million in fines for
dozens of past oil spills in California. The California-based
energy giant agreed to pay a $5.6 million fine associated with
a 2019 oil spill in Kern County. The company has already paid
to clean up that spill. This money will instead go toward the
state Department of Conservation’s work of plugging old and
orphaned wells. The department said it was the largest fine
ever assessed in its history. … The 2019 oil spill
dumped at least 800,000 gallons (3 million litres) of oil and
water into a canyon in Kern County, the home of the state’s oil
industry. Also, Chevron agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine
for more than 70 smaller spills between 2018 and 2023.
In the near future, recycled wastewater could account for 30%
of the drinkable water in the East county. The water would go
through several purification steps at a new facility being
built in Santee. More than 10 years and $950 million after the
project began, the East County Advanced Water purification is
just a few years away from opening. The facility will provide
water to East County in a sustainable way. Before, much of the
water used in East County homes was released back into the
ocean. By the end of 2026, 11.5 million gallons of purified
water will be treated and released daily.
Ten years. That’s how much time the Bay Area’s 37 wastewater
treatment plants will have to reduce fertilizer and sewage in
their water by 40%. The estimated price tag for the facility
upgrades is $11 billion. The San Francisco Regional Water
Quality Control Board plans to adopt the change as part of its
new discharge permit requirement beginning June 12. Previous
permits did not require reductions …The regulatory change
follows a damaging algae bloom in 2022 and 2023. A brown algae
species called Heterosigma akashiwo, which feeds off the
nitrogen in wastewater, infected the Bay and damaged aquatic
ecosystems.
When heavy rain overwhelms wastewater treatment plants in San
Francisco, causing stormwater to overflow onto streets and
into the bay, sewage is an unfortunate part of the mix.
After heavy rain, the largest recipient of the potent brew of
stormwater and sewage in the city is Mission Creek — a
channel to the bay that is home to houseboats, walking trails
and a kayak launch. At Mission Creek, Islais Creek, another
channel at India Basin, and a few locations in between, the
city discharges 1.2 billion gallons of “combined sewer
discharges” in a typical year, according to the environmental
group S.F. Baykeeper, which has notified the city it intends to
sue over how such discharges impact the environment. A large
portion of the combined sewer overflows — which SFPUC said
are composed of 94% treated stormwater and 6% treated
wastewater — is making its way without basic treatment
into the bay during storms, according to S.F. Baykeeper.
A pair of new state bills are looking to crack down on some of
the polluters fueling the cross-border sewage crisis that has
hobbled access to San Diego County’s southernmost beaches for
decades. Senate Bill 1178 and Senate Bill 1208, introduced on
Monday by State Sen. Steve Padilla, add regulations to water
discharges for large corporations, as well as prevent water
authorities from issuing additional permits for waste releases
into areas in the Tijuana River system.
In California and across the country, household water rates
have been rising as utilities invest to upgrade aging
infrastructure, secure future supplies and meet treatment
standards for clean drinking water. As monthly water bills
continue to increase, growing numbers of customers have been
struggling to pay. New federal legislation would establish a
water assistance program to help low-income families pay their
bills and prevent shutoffs of water service. The bill,
introduced by Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, would make
permanent a federal program that Congress authorized in 2020
during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program provided more than $1
billion in assistance, but it’s expiring.
People born in 1994 will be turning 30 this year — and so will
the drought in Arizona. Groundwater is the primary source of
water for the state, along with allotments from the Colorado
River. But due to a population that has nearly doubled since
the drought began in 1994, groundwater is drying up. In
response, Gov. Katie Hobbs put a moratorium on new housing
developments last year unless developers can prove they have
safe access to non-groundwater sources for 100 years before
they can begin construction. Along with efforts to encourage
home water use reduction, another solution being considered is
a bit greener: direct potable reuse (DPR), known colloquially
as “toilet to tap.” But the issue is far more complex than a
catchy tagline.
The State Water Resources Control Board is exploring regulating
nutrients emitted from Southern California wastewater treatment
plants into the ocean. The controversial move is prompted by
concerns that these discharges may accelerate acidification and
oxygen loss in the region’s coastal waters, harming nearshore
marine life. The wastewater treatment industry says this
nutrient regulation is premature. Environmentalists say it’s
overdue. … Wastewater effluent from 23 million
people is piped offshore in Southern California. The resulting
acidity boost could be enough to start dissolving the shells of
crabs and small snails called pteropods, which swim near the
ocean surface and are a favorite food of many fish and whales.
And the resulting oxygen depletion could deprive anchovies,
which many commercial fish eat, of their habitat.
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson announced on Tuesday that funding of
$2.3 million for three Solano County projects will be
considered by Congress later this week. Thompson secured nearly
$15 million for projects for his district, California’s Fourth.
… The projects in Solano County are: $959,752 for
the Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and Reclaimed
Water Project. The Rio Vista Wastewater Plant Consolidation and
Reclaimed Water Project supports the Clean Water Act standards
by aiming to eliminate the direct discharge of water into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, recharges the aquifer on
which Rio Vista City relies for drinking water, and mitigates
drought issues by providing a reusable water source.
For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana, Mexico has, and
continues, to flow across the border into San Diego,
California. This discharge flows into the Tijuana River
Valley, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. This
pollution has negatively impacted the Tijuana River Valley and
the Tijuana River Estuary, one of the last remaining estuaries
in California, and the beaches. Unhealthy concentrations
of fecal indicator bacteria has forced the County of San Diego
to close 10 miles of beach access from the US-Mexico Border all
the way to the beaches of Coronado. At the urging of
Congressman Scott Peters, the San Diego State University School
of Public Health issued a white paper which details the public
health risks posed by the transborder flow of sewage.
On Sept. 7, 1993, the San Diego City Council declared a state
of emergency regarding the discharge of raw sewage it said was
coming from Tijuana, Mexico, and polluting the international
border. More than 30 years later, the San Diego City Council
renewed the state of emergency on Feb. 27 over an ongoing issue
that has been traced back to 1934. In the past five years, the
International Boundary and Water Commission stated that more
than 100 billion gallons of untreated sewage, industrial waste
and urban runoff have been discharged into the Pacific Ocean
from the Tijuana River.
Residents in Grover Beach are feeling the pinch as water rates
surged this month, but a new bill could ease their burden. “We
had a rate increase of $26, which we were billed once every two
months,” said Dave Browning, who lives in Grover Beach. “That
was roughly $13 per month.” Grover Beach residents recently
felt the impact of a long-discussed water rate hike. “We did
send a couple of letters, and I know they’ve received quite a
few from what I was being told,” Browning said. And while many
still have strong opinions about it moving forward, those
facing the reality of the hike now are concerned about how
they’ll pay for it.
The cause of Santa Barbara County’s biggest offshore sewage
spill in recent memory — north of one million gallons — remains
the subject of an ongoing investigation, the county supervisors
were told in an informational briefing this Tuesday
morning. The supervisors were most interested in figuring
out why it took six days for its Department of Public Health to
get the news of a leak that was first detected late Friday,
February 16.
The Marin Municipal Water District is planning to replace
several miles of leaking pipes in Marin City at an estimated
cost of about $5.9 million. The district will soon be reviewing
bids for the first phase of the project, which officials say is
needed to reduce water loss and improve the resilience of the
area’s drinking water system. “This is an underserved
community,” said Jed Smith, a district board member, said
during an operations committee meeting on Feb. 16. … The
first phase of project has an estimated cost of $3.8 million.
It would replace approximately 9,200 feet of a 65-year-old
leak-prone cast-iron pipe with welded steel pipe on various
streets. The work would take about 332 days to perform, with
completion scheduled around Jan. 31, 2025. The project also
will replace 197 service laterals — piping owned by the Marin
water district that connects the water main pipeline to the
service meter and customer-owned pipes.
More problems arose on the Central Coast following a
wild storm Monday that flooded the region and transformed
the runways at the Santa Barbara Airport into a flooded
plain. The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department
announced Thursday that it was closing two beaches in the
county indefinitely, after waterways were contaminated by
thousands of gallons of sewage spilling from a sewer line and
manhole that were damaged due to the storm. Goleta Beach
is closed from 1 mile east to 0.5 mile west of the Goleta
Slough outfall after “a release of approximately 500,000
gallons of sewage from a damaged force main sewer line near the
Santa Barbara Airport to the Goleta Slough during the
recent rain event,” the department wrote in a media
release.
A California environmental group has sued Radius Recycling
(RDUS.O), opens new tab, alleging the recycled steel company’s
operations are polluting the San Francisco Bay and its
tributaries with dirty stormwater runoff. San Francisco
Baykeeper filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in Oakland federal
court, alleging the company has violated the federal Clean
Water Act by failing to stop heavy metals and other pollutants
from washing away during storms at four of its facilities in
the San Francisco Bay area where cars are
dismantled. Radius Recycling was formerly known as
Schnitzer Steel, and was recognized last year by the
research firm Corporate Knights as the world’s most sustainable
company due to its reported improvements in things like energy,
carbon, water and waste use.
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.