Such a poor use of resources…..Over a year ago Russian River County Sanitation District (RRCSD) was penalized almost $1,000,000 by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) as a result of a large illegal discharge of raw and partially treated sewage into the Russian River during the February/March, 2019, flood.
Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA), since 1995, manages and operates RRCSD and 7 other County waste disposal operations. County Supervisors (only one of whom represents the Fifth District) serve as Directors for all eight sewage facilities and also oversee about 17 other County Departments. Both entities are held responsible for conditions that caused the spill, cleaning it up, making needed repairs, and operating it in such a way so as to eliminate serious failings and lack of future function. The Regional Board has the power to hold both entities legally responsible for system malfunctions, but often lets them “off the hook”.
Formerly, penalty funds would be used for system improvements and/or corrections so as to avoid future spills, but the State had recently changed its rules and determined that the funds (some or all of which come out of the pockets of current ratepayers), would be used to develop a West County project to centralize treatment and disposal of sewage ostensibly in order to cut costs and reuse more of the wastewater. That project is in planning stages now and we worry that expensive choices, insensitive to West County values, may be made as a result. We are also worried about growth inducing impacts. We must note that these are very preliminary proposals but also have a very short timeline in which to get them done.
Eight new wastewater configurations proposed for West County….SCWA was put in charge of developing this feasibility study grouping multiple wastewater facilities together, even where extensive and expensive pipelines and water crossings would be required. These are the same people responsible for running RRCSD, in a way that has frequently been subject to penalty since early on, when our collection system has been subject to spills during very high flows. In the last ten years, about 2.5 million gallons of toxic wastewater has been allowed to spill into the Russian River by the County. Our system was not built to withstand flood flows even though legally required to do so. We must note that, for better or worse, Water Agency did not plan the RRCSD facility. They began managing it in 1995.
.Descriptions of two of the eight sample projects……Here are sample descriptions of the best and worst of the choices. (During the first round they will only consider four already existing treatment plants including RRCSD, Forestville, Graton, and Occidental which would be hooked to Graton for treatment. Forestville and Graton would be combined. RRCSD would have collection system upgraded and repaired as has already been defined.) In the second round (not started yet) studies would be conducted to expand selected system(s) to add on area wide septic systems. The ultimate goal is to get as many septic systems hooked up to central systems as possible.
Alternative 1a: This is RRWPC’s only preferred option of eight and would include:
- RRCSD as it is now, but also repair collection system mostly as studied by West Yost already. While they may be in line to receive up to $50 Million to do the critical work, nothing is guaranteed and formally promised funds were already delayed. Collection system repairs not part of proposal.
- Forestville would need expansion of tertiary filtration & disinfection.
- Graton would need headworks improvements & conversion of treatment ponds to complete mix system.
- No new pipelines or river crossings would be needed.
This alternative got the highest ranking by consultants for having cheapest cost.
- It is the only one of eight that RRWPC would endorse.
Alternative 2c: This is our least preferred option and includes:
- Exporting wastewater to Windsor & Santa Rosa facilities from West County facilities.
- Projected cost of this option runs from $165.7 to $248.5 million dollars.
- It requires 29.3 miles of new pipeline and 9 water crossings.
- It would involve converting storage and treatment ponds to equalization facility.
- Connection to Santa Rosa would cost $21 million dollars
- Connection to Windsor would cost $24 million dollars
- (RRCSD water would be treated at Windsor and 3 other facilities’ water treated at Santa Rosa and we guess current facilities would be shut down.)
These are same authorities who ignore our river water quality needs during low summer flows…
The river has regularly been a source of many kinds of algae that create massive nutrient pollution and sometimes even toxic algae in summer exacerbated by low flow. Every summer for the last fifteen years phosphorus has regularly exceeded legal limits. Yet County and Water Agency have done nothing to help the situation. But they have put huge efforts into expanding the water supply for their urban customers.
- They are exploring ways to take down Potter Valley dams AND still get some of the flow from the Eel River. Their plans are well advanced and seem to be meeting with favor among other water users. (PGE is going through process of withdrawing from operating dams for power.) Because of so many users upstream, the lower river would hardly benefit from those flows.
- While Water Agency is currently taking steps to increase storage at Lake Sonoma through monitoring weather trends and reservoir storage, they do not plan to share any with lower river.
- …They have not persuaded National Marine Fisheries to retain 125 cfs minimum flow in summer under the new Biological Opinion even though NMFS no longer seeks to form a lagoon in the Estuary. Instead, SCWA will continue to request emergency permits from the State requesting 70 cfs, a decrease of about 40%, which do not allow meaningful public comment and which are routinely granted, not to mention the environmental harm they allow. Finally, there will be no changes to water law Decision 1610 which would have triggered a public comment process.
- They have recently signed a new outside water contract with North Marin Municipal Water District to sell them large amounts of ‘surplus’ water. According to a report from a local water expert, “Treated water from the (Russian) river is channeled through an aqueduct along Highway 101 for blending into Marin’s distribution system. Excess water flows into the ocean…there is no way to capture that water for later use.” And, “Estimated at $167 million, the proposed project would construct a 13-mile, 36” pipeline and a pump station to redirect some of that water into the Nicasio Reservoir for storage. The pipeline could yield 3,800 to 4,750 acre-feet of water a year.”
- And they are exploring development (and may have already developed) aquifer storage and recovery where they take high flows from Russian River and inject it into ground water for storage.
RRWPC needs your continued support! Donor contributions sustain our independent river protection work and are badly needed now. Furthermore, we inform our community about topics not usually (ever?) covered in local newspapers. We rely exclusively on five or six mailers a year to supporters for our entire fiscal support. We are primarily a volunteer organization and appreciate any amount you can contribute. Donations may be sent via mailed check (with card and envelope provided) or by using PayPal at our website (www.rrwpc.org). Thank you!
PS: We had to say goodbye to our old Canon color printer. We have several color cartridges left in original packaging we can sell at deep discount. They are all Pixma 270 and 271 XL (extra ink). Email if interested.