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CSPA News Even more ammonia discharges into the delta? Rio Vista's Waste water treatment renewal permit found grossly deficient by CSPAby Jerry Neuburger The list, part of the request by CSPA to be added as a designated party in the renewal proceedings, contains a litany of chemicals and heavy metals that would be dumped into the delta forming a killing zone over 250 feet long. The discharges would include aluminum, ammonia, boron, copper, dibromochloromethane, dichlorobromomethane, iron, lead, manganese, nitrates and nitrites. The zone, called a "mixing zone" in the request for renewal, exceeds numerous standards both state and federal and would be a significant hazard to resident delta fishes and other aquatic life as well as seaward migrating Chinook salmon smolts since the zone is directly in their path to the sea. In addition to the problems cited in the CSPA letter, the Rio Vista Wastewater Treatment Facility has a poor record in its processing of municipal effluent and has had numerous spills of untreated sewage far exceeding mandated coliform (fecal) bacteria levels. While the request for renewal is in fact a plan for a disaster in the making, the fact that it is deficient in so many areas speaks to the low standards that the Central Valley Regional Quality Control Board expects in approving permits. Facilities with no greater requirements in wastewater treatment extend from the mouth of San Francisco bay all the way to Redding on the Sacramento Rivers, past Marysville and Yuba City on the Feather, and past Stockton on the San Joaquin. Add the chemicals and heavy metals from agricultural runoff and the delta is being turned from a clean waterway, safe for humans and aquatic species, to a toxic soup. The delta, now in its death tremors, can no longer sustain the dumping of chemicals, pollutants, heavy metals, and fecal bacteria and still be expected to be the place of recreation for boating enthusiasts, swimmers, water skiers, wind surfers and jet skiers. It's amazing, considering the amounts of pollutants in the water currently that the perimeters of the entire delta are not posted: "Warning, the waters of the delta are known to contain substances known to be carcinogens, mercury and other heavy metals which can cause birth defects and health problems, and fecal bacteria which can cause meningitis. Enter these waters at your own risk" Now if all these things are being dumped into the delta by waste water treatment plants such as the plant in Rio Vista and numerous other treatment plants along the river, extending all the way to Redding and they are hazardous to humans whose contact with the water is limited, imagine what they are doing to the delta's permanent and transitory finney residents. Is it any wonder the delta is in the trouble it's in?
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