CLEARLAKE— Filling in last minute after Senator Mike McGuire cancelled at the Judge’s Breakfast in Clearlake this Thursday was Lake County Special Districts Administrator Scott Harter. Harter discussed the county’s sewage and wastewater treatment facilities with a focus on the county’s continued partnership with the CalPine geothermal plant in Middletown.
Harter gave a brief overview of the department’s responsibilities which encompasses five districts serving approximately 34,000 lake county residents. In total there are 180 miles of gravity sewer mains and 88 miles of water mains throughout the county and each district requires different processes for filtering wastewater. The special districts department also manages 10 street light districts with around 700 lights in the county.
According to Harter, the special districts department also manages the water districts for North Lakeport, Kono Taye, Kelseyville, Soda Bay and Spring Vally communities. Each district has different water treatment and in example Harter noted that both North Lakeport and Soda Bay water districts involves treated lake water, “which is a pretty complicated process” as stated by Harter. After the filtration processes are complete the average for the North Lakeport district is 500,000 to 700,000 gallons a day of production.
Regarding wastewater Harter shared, “We are pretty unique here in Lake County in that we treat our wastewater to a secondary standard and a majority of it goes to the geysers for re-injection.” After conducting various studies CalPine found that re-injecting steam back into the ground they remove steam from helps to stabilize seismic activity for surrounding neighborhoods. Harter noted “Cobb and surrounding areas see a lot of seismic activity, some of it is related to the geysers – they want to minimize that impact while still being a good neighbor and producing power.” Today CalPine receives over 30 million gallons per day for re-injection purposes.
Harter said that in 1997 the Lake and surrounding counties began phase one of a project with CalPine to construct pipelines that would direct treated wastewater to the geothermal plant. In 2000 phase two was completed and currently Lake County sends upwards of four million gallons of wastewater to the plant each day. Santa Rosa also entered into such project and provides 25 million gallons of wastewater per day. In exchange for the wastewater each county involved is entitled to royalties from CalPine. District 2 Bruno Sabatier said, “We get about 700,000 dollars a year in royalties, it goes up and down but typically is around 700,000.” Sabatier continued explaining how switching from secondary to tertiary treatment would make the wastewater more viable for a multitude of uses including fire suppression and human contact, expanding the county’s opportunities to combat recurring drought.
Lastly Harter spoke on local pricing after Clearlake Mayor Dirk Slooten asked, “If you lower your connection fees do you think it would help encourage development in this area?” Harter responded in agreement that it surely would help drive development, but lowering any of the set fees requires a rate study, which is not something they are currently looking at for Clearlake as they just completed one for Middletown and will be conducting a rate studies for North Lakeport, Kelseyville and Spring Valley next.
The Judge’s Breakfast meets every Thursday Morning at 7 a.m and next week’s speaker is Zabdy Neria, School Board Member of the Konocti Unified School District. A full breakfast is available for purchase but not required to participate. The venue has been changed temporarily to the Masonic Lodge located at 7100 South Center Drive while the Clearlake Senior undergoes remodeling over the next several months.
