San Francisco Chapter Surfrider Foundation

Santa Rosa Likely to Kill Proposal to Dump Wastewater into the Ocean
Mike McCoy - March 19, 2003
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Santa Rosa's Board of Public Utilities on Thursday is expected to kill a plan to study disposing of its treated wastewater by dumping it into the ocean.

"The political war we would face would be heavy, and financially it makes a lot more sense to look at something that has a lot more support," said one City Hall insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The comments drew support from several other knowledgeable sources, all of whom asked to remain unidentified. All the sources predicted the controversial proposal will be dropped.

Still undecided is Deputy City Manager Ed Brauner. He said his recommendation to the board on whether to drop the idea won't be made until late today, after he further analyzes the pros and cons of the issue.

"I still don't know where I'm going to come down on it," he said.

The board's meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.

As proposed, the ocean outfall option would involve extending a 5-foot-diameter pipe 25 miles from the city's regional sewage treatment plant west of Rohnert Park to the Salmon Creek area. The project's cost is pegged at $160 million to $240 million. Reconsideration of the ocean option comes 15 years after the city first considered, then abandoned, the idea. The decision was the result of widespread opposition from coastal residents and a conclusion by city leaders that the highly treated effluent should be put to productive use.

Santa Rosa officials eventually settled on a $183 million project to pipe wastewater to The Geysers, where it will be injected into the ground to revitalize steam fields used to generate electricity.

The new consideration of ocean discharge stems from the city's need to accommodate new state and federal standards that may restrict existing methods of wastewater disposal.

While several sources said it's likely the board will drop ocean discharge from its list of disposal alternatives to be studied, they also said the option won't be completely forgotten.

"It's not the politically or environmentally preferred option, but it won't totally be eliminated from consideration," another City Hall source said.

The sources said the option could be revived if tougher state clean water rules and federal requirements to protect the tiger salamander make it difficult for Santa Rosa to implement other disposal options.

Utilities Director Miles Ferris said the state and federal regulations could prevent continued discharge of wastewater into the Russian River or construction of new storage reservoirs in the Santa Rosa Plain. The storage ponds are necessary for disposal of wastewater through agricultural and urban irrigation.

The California Toxics Rule sets limits on 126 chemicals, heavy metals and other pollutants that can be contained in wastewater discharged into inland waterways. City officials say they'd have to spend about $300 million on a purification system to meet the new state standards.

About half of the 8 billion gallons of wastewater generated annually by Santa Rosa and its three regional sewage treatment partners -- Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sebastopol -- is released into the Russian River during the winter.

"If you can't discharge into the river, you have to find another alternative. Would that be the ocean or the moon?" Ferris said. Some of the wastewater now discharged into the river will be redirected to The Geysers when the project is completed this summer. But city officials worry the new regulations could have other far-reaching impacts, including reducing the regional treatment system's current wastewater irrigation program, which serves 6,400 acres of urban and farm lands.

If the board drops ocean outfall, it could decide to study another option in which wastewater would be piped south for agricultural irrigation and to restore salt marshes along San Pablo Bay.

"It would be a stupendous environmental achievement," Brauner said.

He said studying the salt marsh option would add about $200,000 to the study's current $3.8 million price tag.