Amador County – The Ione City Council today (November 16th) could discuss the next steps in its wastewater treatment plant.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board in a letter November 4th called for a “Wastewater Master Plan” that will prevent “seepage discharges to surface water,” and said the city’s “Report of a Waste Discharge” at the facility remained incomplete, stemming from a 2003 Cease & Desist order at the wastewater treatment plant.

City Manager Kim Kerr said they “don’t necessarily agree,” and city staff is “looking at not building Pond 8 at all.” She said that proposal has not yet been considered by the Ione City Council, but that could be part of discussion tonight.

Kerr said one solution to problems with proposed Pond 8 would be to reduce the size of the project from 800,000 gallons a day to 500,000 gallons a day. That “would reduce the need for Pond 8, so potentially Pond 8 would be eliminated,” she said.

Kerr said the seepage remained an issue of contention. The water has been tested and it was “inconclusive as to whether it comes from a treatment plant or not.” She said city staff will propose an “isotope test” to “see if it is effluent or if it is ground water.”

She said “that will answer the question whether we have a seepage problem or not.” Any studies so far have been inconclusive, because they are not showing that it’s treated effluent from the wastewater treatment plant. She said people are making assumptions, but the city also can’t be 100 percent sure it’s not seepage from the plant.

She said if the city “did nothing on our project, we would still have to deal with the seepage issue.”

The state believes it is seeping effluent, based on visits to the site in 2003 and 2005, when visual dampness was seen at the creek bank, and it was called a seepage of treated effluent. Kerr said since then, after repair, it has not been seen to be damp.

Kerr said studies done on samples from that damp area have proven to be inconclusive to the city, though the Regional Board refers to it as seepage.

Kerr said they need the isotope study to give the state a conclusive answer to the seepage question. The isotope study should be done in about 4-6 weeks, in the time it takes to get the samples take and tested and right the report.

She said if the seepage were proven, the city would have to get a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, which would increase requirements, such as monitoring, and it “opens the city to Clean Water Act violations.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.