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State Water Board Agrees with CSPA: issues draft order in Tracy Appeal remanding back to Regional Board
by Bill Jennings, Executive Director, CSPA
May 11, 2009 -- The State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) has issued another draft order in the matter of CSPA's appeal of the permit for the City of Tracy's wastewater treatment facility. The permit allows the City of Tracy to discharge up to 10.8 million-gallon-per-day of treated wastewater into one of the most polluted and degraded areas of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) issued the permit on September 2007. CSPA appealed the permit to the State Board, citing blatant violations of federal regulations.
An initial draft order was issued in February 2009 that agreed with many of CSPA allegations and proposed to remand the permit to the Regional Board to comply with regulatory requirements. A hearing was conducted on 17 March. The Regional Board and City of Tracy vigorously opposed the proposed order; claiming it would require extensive and costly upgrades to the city's wastewater treatment facility. The State Board directed staff to further consider evidence presented at the hearing.
This latest draft order, released on 7 May 2009, again upholds CSPA contentions and remands the permit to the Regional Board to: 1) include a final effluent limitation for electrical conductivity; 2) remove dilution credits for several pollutants; 3) add an effluent limit for ammonia and 4) include a narrative chronic toxicity limit. A hearing is scheduled for 19 May 2009.
Two significant issues remain. First, the order does not address the fact that the city failed to conduct the necessary antidegradation analysis mandated by state and federal law. Antidegradation analyses are required to ensure that expanded wastewater discharges do not degrade waters of the state and nation The order simply observes that the State Board will consider a revision to antidegradation policy some time in the future. Second, the order fails to address requirements to include specific “numerical” chronic toxicity limits where a discharge has the likelihood of causing chronic toxicity. The order simply says the State Board is developing a new policy regarding chronic toxicity. However, the State Board declared it would develop a new chronic toxicity policy some five years ago and nothing has been accomplished. Consequently, new permits have been issued statewide with hard-to-enforce narrative limits.
CSPA does not believe there is any legal justification for ignoring long-existing regulatory requirements based upon vague claims that those regulations may be revised at some point in the future. CSPA is prepared to litigate these two important issues, if necessary.