LAKEPORT — Concerns were voiced at recent Lakeport city council meetings, about the regional water quality control board cease and desist order placed on the city”s sewer system last spring.
The order required nearly $3 million in repairs?unexpected costs for the already strapped-for-cash city. It is operating on a budget deficit of $1.5 million.
The cease and desist order is not a moratorium. “It”s common for people to mistake the cease and desist order with a moratorium,” Mark Brannigan, Utilities Superintendent said.
Unlike a moratorium, the cease and desist order does not prohibit new residences or businesses from hooking up to the system, although it does limit that number.
The city narrowly avoided such a moratorium, which would prohibit the city from issuing building permits. When the cease and desist order was in draft form, it included a moratorium. But after an appeal, it was removed when the order was adopted by the regional water quality control board on March 15. The order will be in place until a new waste discharge permit is issued. Brannigan, Utilities said he expects a new permit will go into effect at the beginning of 2009.
But the new permit won”t eliminate the cease and desist requirements. “The new permit will combine the cease and desist and the permit, and whatever is the latest and greatest regulatory tool,” Brannigan said.
He said the Community Development Department will track the progress of obtaining a new permit. “It”s hard to say [what will be included in the new permit]?we know it”s going to be a hybrid of what we have now.”
Part of the cease and desist order required expansion and construction on the sewer system. Spray irrigation expansion, additional monitoring and some project construction to retrofit the system were also requirements. “There was a construction part requiring that we have capacity. By doing that, that”s how we got the connection moratorium lifted,” Brannigan said.
The original permit allowed the city one million gallons per day of average dry weather flow.
The cease and desist order limited that number to .38 gallons per day. By agreeing to expand spray irrigation fields, .42 gallons per day are currently allowed.
That is only during dry-weather months, according Environmental Project Manager Wendy Wyels. The spray irrigation project was finished by November, Brannigan said.
There is also an 885 acre-feet annual inflow limit. “The city can”t exceed those flow rates until they say ?we have more capacity,”” Wyels said.
The city of Lakeport reported the overflows to the water board, Wyels said. From 1998 to 2007, 64 spills from Lakeport”s sewage collection system and three from the treatment facility all were in violation of the waste-discharge requirements. The largest spill was between 3 and 6 million gallons in 2006.
City Manager Jerry Gillham said most of the water that spilled and made its way into Clear Lake was not harmful sewage, but instead mostly lake and rain water that had infiltrated the system.
But Wyels said because the water went through the collection system it is considered sewage at that point. “Just because it started out as lake water doesn”t mean it isn”t considered sewage once it enters the system. The entire volume is considered sewage under the clean water act.”
Brannigan said the millions of gallons of sewage that overflowed from the system and made its way into the lake was a direct result of uncapped sewer clean-outs at Will-o-Point resort in Lakeport that sucked lake water into the system unchecked.
“It went to the treatment plant and was sent to storage. We took in more water than we had storage for. What we did is we contacted all of the regulatory agencies, the water quality board, a whole list of people, letting them know that we”d gotten full, instead of allowing it to spill over. We treated it with chlorine and put it out on our spray irrigation field. Some of that water that was sprayed made its way into the drainage course, off the property and into the lake,” Brannigan said. He added he did not know if Will-O-Point had received legal repercussions as a result of the incident.
Wyels said Lakeport is not the only community with problems. The Lake County Sanitation District (LCSD) north west sewage treatment plant is under a cease and desist order from the early 2000s for spills from its collection system. The LCSD”s south east treatment plant has a clean-up and abatement order, and was issued a fine for their spills from 2004-2005. Kelseyville”s plant has a cease and desist order for lack of capacity.
“We don”t take it lightly. We [issue orders] when we need to get a plant to do significant improvements,” Wyels said, adding that many counties in their jurisdiction have similar orders issued to their communities sewage treatment plants.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
