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State Board Staff again agrees with CSPA on Lodi Wastewater Permit, Hearing scheduled for 7 July 2009
July 3, 2009 -- In October 2007, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) appealed Lodi's wastewater discharge permit that was issued by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) in September 2007 to the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board).
The City's White Slough Pollution Control Facility treats 8.5 million gallons a day of municipal wastewater and, during the winter, discharges it to Dredger Cut, a dead-end slough in the Delta. The winter discharge is treated to tertiary standards. In the summer, the effluent is treated to undisinfected secondary standards, mixed with untreated industrial wastes from a separate industrial pipeline and sludge collected during the treatment process, stored in 49 acres of unlined ponds and subsequently disposed of on 790 acres of adjacent agricultural fields. The industrial pipeline receives food-processing wastewater, metal finishing wastes, cooling water and stormwater from industrial areas.
CSPA alleged that the Regional Board permit for Lodi was illegal, violated the Basin Plan, lacked appropriate effluent limitations for toxicity for surface water discharges and failed to protect groundwater when wastewater was applied to fields. Salts, nitrates and other constituents polluted the groundwater beneath the treatment facility and adjacent fields, which are hydraulically connected to surface waters in the Delta. Specifically, CSPA claimed the Lodi's land application violated Title 27 of the California Code of Regulations, which regulates discharges of pollutants to land.
Following review, the State Board issued a January 2009 draft opinion agreeing with CSPA's contentions. A hearing was held on 3 February 2009. The City and Regional Board vigorously opposed the State Board order and claimed that compliance with Title 27 would be prohibitively expensive and would discourage reclamation efforts throughout the state. CSPA's Richard McHenry (engineer) and Steve Bond (geologist) testified that the unlined storage ponds and discharge of untreated wastes had polluted groundwater; the facility was operating in violation of Title 27 and disputed suggestions that complying with the law would discourage reclamation efforts. The State Board directed staff to reconsider the order in light of the new testimony.
Following an extensive reevaluation, the State Board released a 19 June 2009 revised draft order that again agreed with CSPA's allegations that groundwater had been polluted at the site. The new draft order remands the permit back to the Regional Board with instructions to regulate the land application according to Title 27 regulations, prevent the discharge of biosolids to surface waters and include an appropriate narrative effluent limitation for chronic toxicity.