In a mailer I received for Rue Furch titled "What will you do when the wells run dry?", I question whether the candidate has toured the water treatment center for Santa Rosa. It was mandatory as part of my Biology class and it looked to me as if all of the treated wastewater was adequately treated before reuse for irrigation.
Has the candidate toured the facility?
As a water activist for over ten years and a County Planning Commissioner Rue Furch has been at the waste water treatment center on Llano Road many, many times.
I am not sure what attracted your attention in Rue's mailer but wastewater can be adequately treated for irrigation but still have problems. The Laguna is "impaired for nutrients"
https://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/06.26.03/laguna-0326.html
and waste water, after treatment, still has a high load of nitrates that are not dangerous for most people but make it environmentally unfit for dumping in a river or lake. See the article from the Sonoma West & Times copied below.
Another issue that may of may not have been mentioned in Rue's flyer is that the tertiary treatment of waste water that the Llano Road plant provides does not remove a whole series of emergent pollutants, some of the connected with traces of medicine. Environmental scientists consider this a huge risk to the environment.
See the article below by Virginia Strom-Martin taken from my list SonomaWildlife.
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https://www.sonomawest.com/articles/2005/05/11/healdsburg/news/nws-1.txt
SR ponders river discharge
Metropolitan area seeks to stop polluting Laguna, may look to river instead
By Frank robertson - Staff Writer
Russian River watchdogs were on guard again this week as Santa Rosa city officials agreed to conduct studies of where to safely dump treated wastewater directly into the Russian River.
River sites from Cloverdale to Mirabel will be studied as potential locations for one or more pipes that would discharge the city's near drinking-water quality effluent directly into the river instead of the Laguna de Santa Rosa during the winter months.
"There are challenges in the Laguna" owing to factors such as water temperature, nitrates and stricter state regulations that kick in over the next five years, said Mark Millan, public information coordinator for Santa Rosa's recycled water program.
But no future river discharges would ever exceed the 4.5 billion gallons per year already allowed by the city's permit, said Millan.
In embarking on the new studies, the city is also looking at non-discharge uses that include increased flows to the Geysers steamfields, urban and agricultural reuse and better conservation especially by commercial users, said Millan.
"We know people are very concerned," with how the city will eventually dispose of wastewater generated by upwardly revised growth estimates over the next 15 years, said Millan.
Direct and indirect river discharge studies are scheduled to be contracted out next week by Santa Rosa's Board of Public Utilities as the city prepares to deal with population increases projected in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park.
But even critics say direct river discharge has at least one environmental plus in that it would end the city's current practice of dumping wastewater into the already polluted Laguna.
Because of that, "We have adopted a wait-and-see attitude," said Brenda Adelman, director of the Russian River Watershed Protection Committee.
The committee has taken a cautiously neutral stance "out of concern for the severely degraded Laguna and our desire to see them get wastewater discharges out of there altogether," said Adelman.
But direct river discharge studies will be closely monitored, said Adelman. Her group will critique the $3 million studies "with a fine-tooth comb," said Adelman. "We don't want to see them move their problems from one place to another."
Direct discharge is estimated to be the cheaper method at $30 million compared to $90 million for the indirect method which stores wastewater in riverside ponds that percolate into the soil.
Direct river discharge would replace the city's multiple discharge points in the Laguna with one or more outfall pipes somewhere between Cloverdale and Mirabel.
City consultants say they are already meeting with Adelman and other clean river advocates such as Healdsburg's Don McEnhill of the Russian RiverKeeper project to ensure everyone's on the same page.
"We know it's a huge issue," said Craig Lichty of the consulting firm of Kennedy/Jenks that will be working on the discharge studies. "We're hoping that by keeping everyone involved people are going to trust the work that's being performed," said Lichty.
The studies, expected to continue for the next 18 months, will look at all the ways "water is discharged back into the environment," said Lichty, and "the best possible manner it can be managed."
His firm's job is to look at environmental impacts and regulatory limits and "find a solution that fits into the community," said Lichty.
"We're going to look at everything," said Lichty. "At the end of the day if we've done our work we'll know which ones have promise and which do not."
The exact location of the new discharge pipe or pipes have yet to be determined - that's what the studies are for. "We're not sure whether it will be one site or multiple sites," said Lichty.
The direct and indirect discharge studies are part of the city's Incremental Recycled Water Program that is looking at ways to accommodate projected growth in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Sebastopol and the South Park Sanitation District, which all ship their sewage to Santa Rosa's Laguna subregional plant for disposal.
Other river advocates are also watching closely. Fred Euphrat, a Healdsburg consultant who specializes in watershed management, is the President of the board of Friends of the Russian River. "FORR believes that discharge to the Russian River should be kept to an absolute minimum," said Euphrat. "We continue to be concerned with the technology being used to clean Santa Rosa's sewage."
Euphrat is concerned about the ability of the Santa Rosa Geysers Wastewater Pipeline to be used to transfer billions of gallons of wastewater from urban to rural areas. "It's a route between santa Rosa's sewage and the landscapes of Sonoma County," he said. "We support treatment of that wastewater until it's as clean as drinking water."
Direct river discharge will also "have issues" complying with the California Toxics Rule (CTR) intended to protect the river's beneficial uses as a drinking water supply, recreational resource and fish and wildlife habitat, said Adelman.
The CTR, which applies stricter conditions on the content of wastewater released by municipal dischargers, lists 124 substances that must be removed or limited in wastewater released into public waterways. The city has about five years to bring its wastewater disposal methods into compliance.
Santa Rosa officials say the city's Laguna treatment plant on Llano Road produces wastewater that meets CTR standards for most of the new "priority pollutants" without building a prohibitively expensive new treatment facility estimated at $350 million.
But the city's system may not adequately remove seven wastewater components, including chemicals found in personal care items, as well as copper from plumbing.
City officials hope these limits can be achieved through the use of "mixing zones" where wastewater releases are highly diluted with river water.
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Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:24:15 -0700
Subject: [SonomaWildlife] LOCAL: Virginia Strom-Martin on Medicine Disposal
Consider this: In the United States the number of prescriptions increased 71% from 1993 to 2006 (from two billion to three and a half billion). At the same time, the population of the United States, increased by about 14%. Sales of over-the-counter medicines increased by 60% in the 1990's. Approximately 50% of all manufactured medications are sold in the United States. Now imagine an increasingly aging population of Baby Boomers and you have a growing chemical soup entering our surface waters with no apparent reduction in sight.
There is no denying that modern medicine has contributed to healthier lifestyles for humans. >From antibiotics to anti-depressants, our lives have become dependent upon pharmaceuticals for cures from our ailments and the older we get the more dependent we tend to become. The average senior takes two to seven prescriptions daily.
But what becomes of old or unused medications that accumulate in the medicine cabinet?
Many doctors and poison control centers advise flushing them down the toilet where they enter the waste stream. Unfortunately, many of these medications have side effects …to the aquatic environment and the critters that live there. During the last decade, concern has grown about potentially adverse effects of drugs released in the environment through treated wastewater. Several studies found that small concentrations remain in waterways nationwide.
The recently released AP investigation found pharmaceuticals in the drinking water of 41 million Americans. Although most of the testing involved metropolitan areas, pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, the source of 40% of the nation's water supply
While many pharmaceuticals do not remain in waterways for long periods of time, the continual input into a body of water can have the impact of a steady concentration of these substances. A 2000 study by the United States Geological Survey of 139 rivers and streams detected significant levels of pharmaceuticals although the concentrations were low. These compounds have proven to interfere with the growth and reproduction of fish, frogs and other aquatic organisms.
Drugs enter wastewater treatment plants from two sources: 1) excretion by the human body and (2) disposal of unused or expired medicines down the toilet or drain. Hospitals and private residences account for the majority of these pharmaceuticals entering the plants. Wastewater treatment plants are designed to remove biodegradable organic material but they are not designed to remove low concentrations of synthetic pollutants.
In addition to considering more effective treatment which will certainly cost consumers dearly,the plan of action NOW is to address the reduction of pharmaceuticals in the environment by educating hospitals and residents that unused or expired medications should NOT be flushed down the toilet or washed down the drain. Putting them in the garbage risks ground water contamination as well.
Although the Environmental Protection Agency is now focused on this issue, there is limited data on the concentrations of pharmaceutical pollutants and federal programs that allocate grants and low-cost loans to protect water pollution and protect rivers, streams, and groundwater that we drink, are sorely under-funded. The Pharmaceutical Industry is launching an initiative with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service focusing on safe disposal methods. Perhaps they should be footing the bill for these programs as the producers and profiteers of medicine manufacturing.
Recently a working group of stakeholders met at the Cal EPA offices in Sacramento to. consider building a model program for statewide implementation. Fortunately there are many people across the state actively involved in medicine "take back" programs. Most shared their collective experiences with eager consumers who are quite willing to return unused or old medicines to a pharmacy or other collection sites. . The Sonoma County Water Agency has spearheaded a pilot program in the towns of Sonoma and Guerneville where residents can "take back" their unused medicines to several locations for safe disposal by a bio-waste management company. This program started in November and will last through June. It is part of a public education and outreach campaign to encourage lifecycle stewardship of pharmaceuticals. Information flyers have been distributed throughout these two communities and are available at the participating locations listed below.
Please become a part of the solution to this emerging challenge and take advantage of the opportunity to participate in this important pilot project which, if successful, will provide the county with a template for a countywide program. Safe medicine disposal means safer water for humans and fish so don't let your medicine go down the drain!
Virginia Strom-Martin, organizer
Sonoma Participants
Rite Aide Pharmacy/ Maxwell Village Shopping Center
Safeway Pharmacy
Long's Drugs
Sonoma County Sheriff's Dept./Valley Substation Grove St.
Sonoma Police Dept.
Guerneville Participants
Safeway Pharmacy
Lark's Drugs
Sonoma County Sheriff