By: Libi Uremovic | Original Article at Patch.com
After Waiting 20 Years for Beaumont to Become Title 22 Compliant the BCVWD Joins With Yucaipa Water Distict for Recycled Water.
Item 5: Consider Authorization of General Manager to Develop an Agreement with the Yuciapa Valley Water District for Recycled Water Supply and Facilities Construction Funding:
Thank you Dan. What I’m going to talk to you about is what I call the Yucaipa Valley Water Distict/Beaumont Cherry Valley Water District missing link. The Yucaipa Valley Water District has a recycle water program that they are moving ahead rapidly with. And there’s an opportunity for the two agencies to connect their systems and we would be albe to start taking a regional approach to utilizing recycled water supplies that are available.
One of the questions that comes up is why Yucaipa Valley Water District? One of the reasons why Yucaipa Valley Water District is a preferred provider of recycled water for our Agency is their advanced multibarrior treatment technology using microfiltration and reverse osmosis. There’s a discussion about state-of-the-art plants and a discussion on websites and things about state-of-the-art plants and I’ll show you a state-of-the-art plant in a little while.
The other issue is as Guldseth had aluded to; there’s several issues in terms of regulatory environment that our Agency has to deal with and one of those is the Basin management plan and the salt mitigation. Ya can’t just bring water in here with just any water quality. And right now the City of Beaumont’s recycled water is about 400 plus TDS or total disolved solids. Total disolved solids is a measure of the saltiness to the water. The Basin managment plan actually says this Basin has a goal of about 230 milligrams per liter.
The idea is if you are going to re-utilize the water supplies that are local and that you’re going to show a benefit to the people of the State of California and how do you show a benefit to the people in the State of California? Well, you reduce the amount of imported water that you bring into the region so other people in California have more water available to them.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board then establishes then what’s called a ‘maximum benefit objective’, which is higher than what they’d ultimately like the Basin to be. In our case, that’s 330 milligrams per liter TDS which is still under what the discharge is from the City of Beaumont, so we can’t just use that water without a desalter in place or some other dilution water being used so we could put that water to use in our area without having a problem with compliance with the directive from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. With Yucaipa’s water they’ve already have reverse osmossis, they’ve made the investment, so we would be able to meet that objective without any additional work.
The other thing is what was discussed by Mr. White and others this evening: The Regional Quality Control Board and the California Department of Public Health has approved or is in the final stages of approving Yucaipa’s water, so it’s ready to go. The letter Mr. White took by thunder this evening was from December 17, 2007 that was written by Steve Williams from the Department of Public Health to to the City of Beaumont saying hey, these are the things you need to do if you want to comply with Title 22.
That was seven years ago and they still haven’t done that, so based upon that track record District staff didn’t think they were in any way to get to that point. And just to verify that, as Director Ball had indicated, there was discussion from the City of Beauont Officials at the ad hock committee and also reported out at the alliance meeting that “Beaumont’s on track, 45 days we will be on track and have our Title 22 approval and legalize that water right away.” And that’s what was assured to me by Kyle and some other Officials from Beaumont.
So I took a moment and called Mr. Williams at the Department of Public Health and asked him where are they at and do you think that’s going to happen? Have they approved the protocals? What’s going on?
Mr. Williams indicated that he hasn’t heard from the City of Beaumont in quite some time. So if they were actually on track with that then you would think that the District Engineer responsible for issuing that document would have some understanding of that happening. I don’t even think you could get the protocals approved in 45 days with the way the State moves sometimes. So to say that they are 45 to 90 days out for approval on Title 22 is, I think, a mistatement of facts. The other thing is high quality water that could be used for recharge without significant water quality impacts.
If you recall there was a study done by UC Riverside a while back in 2012 where they analyized the water quality in the Beaumont Basin. It was titled: Water Quality Assessment of the Beaumont Management Zone. One of the things they look for is personal care products, pharmacudicals, that type of thing. And if you look at page 73 of that study you’ll see that great graphic showing the highest consintrations of those emerging consituents’ concerns is right where the City of Beaumont Wastewater Treatement Plant discharge is. Those are like the Tylonals, the personal care products, superlows that’s found in splenda and just things that aren’t going away naturally or moved from a conventional wastewater treatement plant that are ending in the acquifer. Here’s a picture of the City of Beaumont’s wastewater treatment plant.
The issues we have is one; the California Department of Health approval, studies from December 2007 that were required but yet to be completed. They have no desalinsation in place to meet the basic plan requirements and they have lower water quality that leaves the plant. So the opportunity to use that lower quality water is my big concern as the water quality manager is that I don’t want my legacy to be the guy that took the wastewater and dumped it in the heart of the Beaumont Basin which ultimately resulted in the District having to put wellhead treatements at the cost of several million dollars for each one of its wells to remove something that turned out to be a problem at a later date.
So what is this missing link? If you look in your staff report this evening you’ll see where Yuciapa Valley Water District has their existing system service depicted at the top of the graphic and we’re looking at putting in a 24” pipeline. …
One of the dealpoints was that they only wanted that water to be used for new development and as an offset for new development. One of the things I discussed when I first sat down was that we need to fill the hole that you’ve already dug. We have this hole that should be filled with the water that’s being generated by those existing houses or the houses that were built. They thought that having the recycled water offset those new houses being there. The other sticking point was the public funds concept that if you used water and it was outside the city limits, even though we have no recycled water facilities outside the city limits, but if the recycled water is used outside the city limits then the deal’s off, we’re not giving a gift to folks outside the city. It just went on and on.
Most of the hangup also was the hidden language like Dr. Ball indicated. There was always hidden language about meeting Basin management plan objectives would be done by the District, which basically was trying to shift the burden of that $50 million desalter on the rate payers of BCVWD even though the city had been collecting rates and had fee structures in place to meet those Basin objective. They knew they had to meet those Basin objectives for the last decade or more. They were always trying to slide in that this District would be responsible for it, so when the rates when up the deal to cover those costs. That’s why they wanted to give you the plant for a buck.
I can probably get you the same deal for Stringfellow Acid Pits if you want that as well because you’d be taking on that burden then you’d ultimately have the brunt of the anger from the rate payers when you had to do the right thing and raise the rates that are appropriate and commence with having to provide that level of treatment.
We know that we will need that water, ultimately, from the Beaumont recycled treatment plant, but they’re not ready to do it. Regulatorily, they’re not ready to do it. Physically, they’re not ready to do it. And I think politically, they’re really not ready to do it. This is a great oppotunity for our District to start building a regional approach for recycled water use.