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State
Water Board Agrees With CSPA In Lodi Appeal, Remands waste discharge
permit back to Regional Board
December 25, 2008 -- Bill Jennings, CSPA's Executive
Director, heralded the Lodi decision as yet another, “incremental
victory in addressing one of the many, many sources of water quality
degradation in the Delta. This is the third time in the last four
months that the State Board has remanded a permit back to the Regional
Board as a result of a CSPA appeal.”
CSPA appealed the City of Lodi's reissued wastewater discharge permit to
the State Water Resources Control Board in October 2007. Lodi's
wastewater treatment facility sits within the Delta on the edge of White
Slough and Dredger Cut. The facility discharges treated wastewater to
Dredger Cut and uses partially treated industrial wastewater to irrigate
adjacent agricultural fields. The fields are within the floodplain
and groundwater is hydraulically connected to White Slough.
Numerous water quality problems have been identified in White Slough and
Dredger Cut, including extremely low dissolved oxygen levels.
CSPA's appeal claimed that the permit, issued by the Central Valley
Regional Quality Control Board, was illegal and violated numerous state
and federal laws by allowing the city to pollute groundwater and
improperly dispose of sludge and untreated industrial wastes. It
also alleged that the Regional Board failed to conduct a proper
antidegradation analysis, prohibit toxicity, fully characterize the
waste stream and comply with a number of technical requirements for
issuance of wastewater discharge permits.
State law allows the Board 270 days to act upon an appeal before the
petitioner can proceed to court. In July 2007, the State Board,
recognizing the merits of CSPA's petition, requested they be allowed
additional time to complete their review of the appeal. CSPA
agreed and the Board proceeded to adopt an order to review the appeal
“on their own motion.” This maneuver allowed extra time to
consider the appeal without forcing CSPA to file a lawsuit.
On 23 December 2008, the State Board concluded that CSPA was right and
issued a tentative order remanding the permit back to the Regional Board
with instructions to correct the deficiencies. The State Board
found that the City's wastewater treatment facility had polluted
groundwater and that the Regional Board had illegally exempted the
facility from regulations controlling waste discharge to land. It
also found that the Regional Board failed to require adequate
monitoring, properly analyze the waste stream, prohibit discharge of
bio-solids to surface waters and include an appropriate toxicity
prohibition in the permit.
Comments on the tentative order are due by noon on 23 January 2009 and a
formal hearing is scheduled for 3 February 2009.
Responding to CSPA appeals, the State Water Board remanded the City of
Davis' wastewater permit back to the Regional Board for corrections in
September and Yuba City's wastewater permit back to the Regional Board
in November.
The CSPA Lodi Petition to Review