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Valley Cities Squawk Over Permits
One oft-cited reason for the swelling of Central Valley cities is the comparatively low cost of living. But while the price of homes may continue to lure newcomers, the water that comes out of their taps and garden hoses may soon be a very different story, not because of what it costs to provide but what it costs to treat.
Over the past year, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has renewed the wastewater discharge permits for a couple of dozen cities up and down the Valley, including Sacramento, Vacaville, Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Tracy and Turlock. Many of the new permits include stringent new limits on the pollutants that the cities can discharge to the regions waterways - limits that may require the cities to spend tens of millions of dollars upgrading their sewage plants with newer, more advanced treatment technologies. The upgrade costs could double the price residents pay for water and perhaps triple the cost of sewage connections, say those involved. "It would cost us about $117 million to go to tertiary treatment," says David Tompkins of Vacaville, where the new permit includes strict limits on the levels of trihalomethanes in effluent. Like many of the affected cities, Vacaville has appealed, with a hearing before the State Board scheduled for September. "We have a question about the attainability of these standards," says Tompkins. "We have not found a wastewater plant in the state that can meet them." Tompkins also questions the need to make wastewater as clean as tap water. "This permit would require us to meet the standards for drinking water at the end of the pipe, which doesn't make any sense," he says. The Board's Ken Landau explains that the tightened pollutant limits are the result of the confluence of several factors. "The U.S. issued the California Toxics Rule in May 2000, which set receiving water standards for a long list of pollutants and greatly increased the number of constituents we are looking at. During the same period , the State Board adopted an implementation plan for handling toxics in wastewater, which includes directives on how to set effluent limits and establish timelines for compliance." The Board has also begun enforcing its Basin Plan for the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers more vigorously and looking more closely at how permits for impaired waters on the "303d list" are written. The upshot, says Landau, is "more stringent limits, and limits on many more components of effluent."
The new permit requirements are not only pinching cities, they're also putting a strain on the already understaffed Central Valley Board. "There are 128 priority pollutants and we have to develop levels for each one," says the Board's Greg Vaughn. "Each staffer used to be able to do four or five a year, but now can only handle about one."
Enviros say the costs of meeting stricter pollution limits should simply be considered part of the price of growth in an environmentally compromised system. "The Central Valley is looking at doubling its population over the next two decades, we haven't invested in infrastructure for many years, and most of the region's water bodies are already impaired," says Deltakeeper's Bill Jennings. "These costs simply reflect costs that are usually externalized from the ledger sheets."
Ironically, many pollutants in the rivers have sources other than municipal and industrial wastewater plants, such as agricultural runoff. "There is very little capacity left in these waters," says Landau. "So as the population grows, and creates ever more wastewater, the concentrations of pollutants in that wastewater are going to have to decline."
Many of those involved say they expect most of the permit disputes to wind up in the courts. "This continuing appeals process delays the implementation of what's required by the permits and allows cities to put off building new facilities," says Vaughn. "But at some point you've just got to ask, do you hire engineers or lawyers? At some point you just need to build instead of continuing to appeal."
Contact: Ken Landau landauk@rb5s.swrcb.ca.gov CH
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