Plan floated for sewage
Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee
12/16/2010
Sacramento's sewage district hopes to tap state bond funds and sell its treated wastewater to help cover the cost of cleaning up its effluent.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, on Wednesday said he'll introduce a bill to secure $50 million from existing state water bonds to help pay for upgrading the region's sewage treatment plant.
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, plans a bill to ensure Sacramento can sell its treated wastewater, either as urban drinking water or irrigation water for farms.
"These are measures which we think are reasonable, and should be available to this district to help it meet its obligations," Dickinson said.
The duo announced their plans at a media event Wednesday morning at the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District treatment plant near Elk Grove, where Sacramento's sewage is treated before being pumped into the Sacramento River.
The announcement follows a grueling hearing last week at which the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a strict new wastewater discharge permit for the plant.
The permit gives the district 10 years to significantly clean up its wastewater in order to protect fish and public health downstream in the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The additional measures, including filtration and disinfection, may result in near drinking-water quality effluent.
The proposed $50 million in funding would be a small share of a compliance cost the district has estimated at $2 billion. But Steinberg called it "a beginning stake in the ground" toward a financing plan.
The bond funding, he said, is an acknowledgment that farms and cities south of Sacramento who rely on Delta water will gain something from the region's efforts to clean up its sewage.
"Our goal here today is to ensure all the parties who benefit from water that flows through the Delta help share in the costs," Steinberg said.
The sanitation district treats sewage from 1.3 million people in the capital area.
State law currently allows wastewater treatment operations to sell their treated effluent to others as drinking or irrigation water.
The new legislation, however, would allow the Sacramento district to seek a water rights permit from the state for the volume equivalent to its discharges, or about 180,000 acre-feet per year.
Establishing that volume as a water right would sharply increase its value. That much water is enough to serve nearly 400,000 households.
District Engineer Stan Dean also confirmed Wednesday the agency will appeal the new treatment permit that gives rise to the idea.
While that may seem a contradictory move, he said the district wishes to sell water regardless of the permit's terms. The permit, however, may determine the final quality of any water offered for sale.
The district has no customers for the water yet. But buyers could include developers, farmers and those who divert water from the Delta for cities as far away as San Diego.
Similar arrangements are becoming more common in California as the state reaches the limit of its water supplies. Recycling wastewater, while unpalatable to some, is both cheaper and more environmentally friendly than desalinating sea water, for example.
"We have not started to go out and work on deals," Dean said. "If you think about it, the possibilities are really quite exciting."
