Amador County – Ione City Council retained a firm to take on wastewater project tasks Tuesday, including a state funding program, and authorized part of the tasks to begin.

The Council unanimously hired Winzler & Kelly, a State Revolving Fund expert that has prepared 38 successful grant and loan applications through the California State Revolving Fund that collectively funded $180 million dollars in projects for various California entities.

City Attorney James Maynard said if the city has a firm retained and working on a Report of Waste Discharge, it will look better for the Regional Water Quality Control Board as it considers extending the city’s request for a deadline extension.

Maynard in a report said the Regional Board’s “Prosecution Team has recommended the Board refuse to extend the current deadline.”

He said: “If the Board refuses to extend the deadline for the Report of Waste Discharge, the City will face Administrative Civil Liability proceedings at a future” Regional Board meeting.

“Even if the Board elects not to pursue fines for Ione’s 10-year history of non-compliance but only imposes fines prospectively, those fines could be either $5,000 per day (for discharges to groundwater) or $10,000 per day (for discharges to Sutter Creek) or both,” Maynard said.

“If the City misses the (Report of Waste Discharge) deadline by 90 days, it faces potential liability of between $450,000 dollars and $1.35 million dollars.” He said the Regional Board “could elect to impose additional fines of up to $11 million dollars based on the City’s history of non-compliance.”

The Council will have step-by-step control and approval of the tasks as the project continues. Councilman David Plank asked that contracted sampling of Ponds 5 & 6 to test for wastewater contamination also include Pond 7, “so we get 100 percent assurance there.”

Mayor Ron Smylie said he wanted a test of the Amador Regional Sanitation Authority pipeline that goes into the city percolation pond, to see if it is contributing to the sludge. Plank said “we have to do that on a monthly basis to catch the seasonality.”

Winzler & Kelly’s Mary Grace Pawson said monthly sampling would be more than enough. She said ARSA permits require sampling, and they may already have that data for the water entering the percolation pond.

Regarding the timeline, she said the analysis will lead to a draft technical memorandum which should have enough detail to initiate the Report of Waste Discharge, so they can stay on schedule to meet the May 30 deadline for the Report, while the memo is finalized.

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