“Toilet to tap” is on its way….
What does “toilet to tap” conjure up in your mind? Are all substances going down our toilets and sink drains totally removed before being recirculated into our drinking water supply, our recreational waters, and our environment?
In California, only 125 chemicals of the over 80,000 that exist are regulated. About 870 of those chemicals, sometimes at minute exposures, have been linked to such diseases as autism, obesity, diabetes, cancer (especially of reproductive system), birth defects, Parkinson’s, heart disease, and more.
Hundreds of scientific studies, often ignored by the mainstream media, show there are valid reasons to question the safety of our water resources, especially when scientists have been discovering, for example, that some male fish and frogs exposed on a full time basis to streams where discharge occurs, have turned into females. This is a canary in the mine and we should all be paying much closer attention.
Latest entries
Newsletter, March 2012: Incidental Runoff, Endocrine Disrupters, and RRCSD Fee Increase
March, 2012
Dear RRWPC Supporter:
As the drought continues, there is more and more concern about this summer’s river flows. Already the Sonoma County Water Agency has declared the month of March to be critically dry, based on low runoff into Lake Pillsbury. This designation in turn triggers greatly decreased releases from Lake Mendocino all month. It’s not a huge cause for concern just yet, since releases are recalculated monthly until June, but if we don’t get significant rainfall soon, it can be a harbinger of things to come.
RRWPC files complaint on Santa Rosa’s “incidental runoff”……
Lower river flows provide far less dilution while concentrating pollutants in shallow summer streams. Because of our great concern about the potential significant impacts of incidental wastewater irrigation runoff, Russian River Watershed Protection Committee posted a report of Santa Rosa’s recent irrigation runoff spills on our website at (http://www.rrwpc.org). Numerous pictures taken between mid-December and mid-January accompany the report and graphically illustrate the problem.
Sonoma County Gazette, March 2012
Irrigation runoff: wastewater ‘reuse’ is the new discharge…..
In 1985, the content of Santa Rosa’s 800 million gallon sewage dump was referred to as ‘treated sewage’. Over the years, this liquid waste became known first as treated wastewater, then reused wastewater, treated water, and now simply reused water. This terminology has been consciously modified to make the public feel more comfortable with wastewater reuse, otherwise known as direct potable reuse or more graphically, ‘toilet to tap’. It took 25 years to get Santa Rosa’s winter discharges out of the river (to the Geysers), but now summer discharge in the guise of irrigation runoff will take its place. Because of lower summer flows and less dilution, the impacts in summer may be cumulatively greater than the original spill.
Russian River Petition
Russian River Petition 9.14.11
Water Supply Is “Dry”; SCWA Meeting 2/9/12
Email from Brenda Adelman, February 2, 2012 Friends: First, I thought you might be interested in this announcement below. Normally at this time of year, the Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of dam releases. Because this has been a ...
Newsletter, January 2012: Lawsuit, Santa Rosa Wastewater
Dear RRWPC Supporter:
It’s been a strange, almost waterless winter so far. As I write this in mid-January, we’ve gone over six weeks with no rain. When spring comes, we may be biting our tongues, wondering why we didn’t appreciate the cold, sunny days? In recent years, February and March brought big storms and brimming reservoirs. Let’s hope we see that again this year, especially since late rains assure decent river flows most of the summer. RRWPC will be tracking numerous issues in the coming year. Here’s a summary.
Estuary Project Legal Update…
Of course our legal action on the Estuary Project continues. We are still taking part in court ordered settlement negotiations and were informed by our attorney that we cannot speak about it. We will look forward to telling the story when things get resolved.