Local Wastewater Discharge-To-Land Followers Take Note!

The Regional Water Quality Control Board is meeting in SLO January 30 and 31! Not everyone will be riveted by a topic being heard on Friday, the 31st, but for those who are, here is a link to the staff report - "General Order Development and Program Strategy for the Regulation of Large Wastewater Treatment Plant Discharges to Land 
[Thea Tryon, 805/542-4776, Thea.Tryon@waterboards.ca.gov]"

https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2020/01_jan/attachments/Item15_stfrpt.pdf

Here is a quote:

Facilities that Require Permits to Discharge Waste to Land In the Central Coast region, there are currently approximately 780 different facilities regulated by staff of the WDR program. Of the 780 facilities, there are approximately 185 facilities regulated by individual permits. Three quarters of these permits are over 10 years old and some are over 20 years old.

Our wastewater treatment facility permit is not ancient of course, but some in our area are.

The link to the agenda in toto is here:
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2020/01_jan/index.html

Happy reading!

Los Osos Sewer History 2007

I accidentally ran across this video today from 10 years ago. I had never seen it before and at the time of my watching it there has been only 43 views. First a loud beep over SMPTE color bars, then experience the laid back music under text, the Sewer Dragon lady, and clips from one of the Central Coast's Regional Water Quality Control Board's Cease and Desist hearings, for the dreaded CDOs.

 

CDOs on Regional Water Board Agenda!

Find relevant links here for the September 25, 2014 meeting:

Agenda link—see Item 13, "Enforcement"
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2014/Sepember/agenda_files/agenda_sep2014%20a.htm

Relevant documents page, off which are numerous links.
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2014/Sepember/item13/index.shtml

To cut to the chase, the Enforcement Staff's recommendations are thus:

1. The County has not yet completed the community system, and while we are confident that it will, this outcome is not guaranteed.
   
2. The main requirement of the orders, hooking up to the sewer when it becomes available, cannot yet be complied with. This requirement should stay in place until the system is available.
   
3. Even when the system is available, there may be dischargers in the prohibition zone who are reluctant or refuse to hook up. Leaving these orders in place maintains a disincentive for order recipients to continue violating the prohibition after construction of the sewer system. 

We ALL should have gotten CDOs OR NOVs to begin with. In other words, we all should have been treated equally. While I disagreed many times with the frantic fight against these orders, as in real life, they didn't amount to much unless one chose to react that way about them (think of all of those who simply signed that paper and moved on), the unfairness to not be treated equally, I think, we can all agree on.

There are just as many NOV holders, probably more actually, who may not comply with hooking up to the sewer when it is available, so point 3 just seems to be a way to cut costs or something on a CDO holder who does not comply. In other words, maybe the Board would have to start from scratch with a non-compliant NOV holder, but it wouldn't with a CDO holder? Again, it just looks like playing unfavorites. 

So, IMHO, I believe the Board should adopt the resolution offered which TERMINATES these orders!
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2014/Sepember/item13/item13_att2.pdf

Save September 6 for a SLO RWQCB Meeting on the Recycled Water Management Plan

The links to the transmittal letter and the staff report on the Regional Water Quality Control Board's site are broken. I reported it. But try the links off here anyway:

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_decisions/tentative_orders/index.shtml