Wastewater 101

Interview with Fred Corson

I recently met with Fred Corson, past President of the DCVA and current Chairman of the Clean Water Coalition of Northern Sonoma County. The intended subject was his testimony before the Sonoma County Water Agency hearing on the Dry Creek Valley Agricultural Water Users' Group. What I got in addition was a lesson in water politics and a tutorial in citizen activism. Since this is a very complex subject I have decided to take it a bit at a time to tease and tantalize you with promise of more to come; this is a work in progress so visit often.

Lou Preston

The Dry Creek Valley Agricultural Water Users' Group

A few years ago a handful of grape growers in Dry Creek Valley got together with representatives of the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) to do some horse trading. The farmers were concerned that drought-induced water shortages would mean less water for irrigation and frost control and that their livelihood and property values were threatened. Add to that the uncertainty created by claims of the County that ground water in the Valley is Dry Creek underflow coming from Lake Sonoma, and therefore property of the County.

The tentative deal struck by the Water Users and the SCWA was to exchange the participating farmers' rights to fresh water pumped from aquifers in the Valley for wastewater to be distributed via the Geysers pipeline and sold for agricultural reuse. The Water Agency would guarantee a certain minimum amount of water per acre under contract even in drought years; in return the County would gain access to the fresh water.

The status of this agreement is uncertain at this time as it has been held up by litigation and administrative posturing. Its outcome is of great significance to our Valley, however, and a better understanding of its intricacies was the initial intent of this interview with Fred Corson. Much of the following describes the setting for this agreement and the dynamics of the agencies and entities involved.

The Geysers Pipeline

The huge pipeline that ferries wastewater from the treatment plant in Santa Rosa to the Geysers geothermal plant was and still is an ingenious solution. It seems like a win-win approach to generating more renewable electricity and getting rid of an environmental pollutant at the same time. The Geysers field that creates steam for electricity-generating turbines was beginning to dry up. Waste water makes steam as well as any other so all that was missing was a way to get it to the Geysers. That's the role of the pipeline.

It seems, though, that that was not its only purpose. If you happened to be at the right place at the right time you would recall the installation of various "tees" in the line. One of these was near the intersection of Highway 101 and Dry Creek Road aiming up Valley. Others were at various points with access to the Russian River. Although not discussed at the time, those tees were intended--and since acknowledged--as a way to dispose of more effluent than the Geysers could handle, for agricultural reuse, or for discharge directly or indirectly into the Russian River.

So who owns the pipeline and whose treated wastewater is it, anyway? According to information provided by Corson, Santa Rosa built, owns and operates the pipeline from its Llano wastewater treatment plant to the Geysers. It currently pumps about 12 million gallons a day of reclaimed water from Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, and Sebastopol; plans are to increase the capacity to 20 million gallons per day. The Sonoma County Water Agency itself only operates small plants in Guerneville, Forestville, Occidental, Sonoma Valley, the Airport, and Larkfield/Wikiup; this is not part of the pipeline system. Our fair city of Healdsburg has its own treatment plant, and that is another story for another day.

The Sonoma County Water Agency

Sounds benign enough, a public agency whose task is planning and implementation of water policy for a growing county. The SCWA was established decades ago (my first recollections of it were as a farm kid in the '50s witnessing the vagaries of the Russian River as it bounced from flood to drought) with flood control being its initial concern. It seemed practical at the time that water planning responsibilities be assumed by the County Supervisors, and so from that time until now the Sups have played a dual role: Board of Supervisors managing the General Plan, and Water Agency developing and managing the County's water resources (we should restrain ourselves at this time from considering the potential conflict of interest inherent in this dual role).

Quoting Fred Corson here, the current Board of Supervisors is "driven by the quest for growth, money and power", and its alternate role as Water Agency gives it the tools to accomplish all three. The SCWA is in the water business. And to the extent that wastewater can be reclaimed and added to the general pool of usable water resources, the County is in the wastewater business as well.

In those good old days wastewater was something you got rid of--sweep it under the carpet so to speak. There used to be talk of pumping it into the ocean, in recent memory we have been discharging it into the Russian River via the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Today, wastewater is viewed as a valuable commodity, and those tees in the pipeline were designed to get it to commercial customers like today's Dry Creek Agricultural Water Users Group.

So even though the Water Agency doesn't have a lot of wastewater of its own, it views Santa Rosa's overabundance as an "opportunity to gain access to [their] wastewater as a middleman and sell it to ag water users in the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River valleys" (Corson again).

Water Quality and Control

In the old days no one cared much what happened with people's detritus and waste. Long-time Healdsburg residents will remember the way to get rid of trash was to dump it into a local ravine or onto the banks of the Russian River (we called it erosion control). Local septic pumping companies routinely discharged truck loads of poopy water into prune orchards (we called it fertilizer). Dairies hosed their barn tailings into lagoons which ultimately penetrated the water table or spilled into local creeks in rainy weather. And of course it all flushed to the River. Today we've got principles, we've got rules, we've got the State of California Water Quality Control Board. Limits to contaminants are set by law and regulated by Regional Water Quality Control Boards.

Stringent new water quality requirements set by State law through Title 22 have put tremendous pressure on local wastewater processors--especially Santa Rosa--to clean up their act. Santa Rosa, particularly, must address the concentration of contaminants in its discharges from the Llano treatment plant into the Laguna which eventually end up in the Russian River. There are essentially three ways this can be done. Dilution was the traditional method with big discharges timed to coincide with heavy winter rainfall. Unbelievably this is still under consideration by designating alternate discharge sites to the River, explaining those other tees in the pipeline. A higher degree of treatment is the modern way, with the use of sophisticated and expensive techniques to remove more of the contaminants. This is now being done in some Southern California cities employing Reverse Osmosis, a sort of absolute filtering system. And finally there is reuse in locations that do not require potable water. In addition to the Geysers we have urban landscaping and parks, school grounds (God forbid), and of course agricultural areas like Dry Creek Valley. It is the latter that the Sonoma County Water Agency views as its opportunity.

Clean Water Coalition of Northern Sonoma County

You may have noticed in recent DCVA Board of Directors minutes the approval of our Association to join and share in the cost of a new group, the Clean Water Coalition of Northern Sonoma County. There was a sense of urgency in the Board's deliberation as it seemed that we in North County were being steamrollered by efforts of the Water Agency to dispose of treated waste water in our back yard.

What is so bad about recycling or reusing waste water, one might ask? It seems the right thing to do in a world of scarce resources. The problem is two-fold: the nature of the waste water, and the properties of our soils. Although the current Santa Rosa treatment plant appears to be state of the art, in fact its tertiary treatment is not complete and many nutrients, heavy metals, and soluble organics including untold pharmaceuticals remain. It is not considered potable and agricultural reuse must be posted with a warning--don't drink it!

Our soils in the North County watersheds-- Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley, the upper reaches of the Russian River--are highly permeable being comprised of high percentages of silt, sand and gravel. Water percolates rapidly through these soils and contaminants are not readily trapped or remediated by them. Waste water will quickly reach ground water, where it will compromise what is today a pristine resource. We will forever be drinking it and eating it and bottling it along with our world-famous grapes.

It is this concern that brought together citizen groups and communities in the North County area to counter actions of the Sonoma County Water Agency. Along with the Dry Creek Valley Association are the Alexander Valley Association, the Soda Rock Neighborhood Association, the Westside Association to Save Agriculture, and the City of Healdsburg. Their mission is "that any wastewater projects in North County not do us harm". The initial effort is to employ a hydrologist to prepare a study of ground water resources in each area, the data to be used--if needed--to defend our interests in court.

The Outlook and a Strategy

We will finish this presentation with a discussion of current activities and some possible outcomes. To be continued...

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