Amador County – Ione City Council on Tuesday heard that a work plan for samples at its wastewater effluent storage pond has been submitted to the state and awaits approval before the work can be done.

Consultant Winzler & Kelly Senior Project Manager Mary Grace Pawson gave a brief report dated last Friday saying their team conducted work toward support of the city wastewater treatment plant compliance project.

Pawson said the team “participated in a conference call with the Council’s wastewater subcommittee” and “confirmed that the alternative analysis effort will include a review of land application/effluent storage needs.”

She said the Winzler & Kelly team also “coordinated with the Regional Board on the required anoxic sediment sampling in the percolation ponds,” and submitted a draft work-plan for the sampling effort to the Regional Board for review.

City Manager Jeff Butzlaff said the work-plan must be approved by the Regional Water Quality Control Board before the sampling actually takes place. The samples will look for contamination at the bottom of the pond.

Pawson said the “Regional Board has confirmed that, while they have not required a work-plan for the sampling effort, they will endeavor to review the draft workplan by April 23 so that we can capture any concerns or comments before the field work is completed.”

Butzlaff said it was pretty clear that the city would not be meeting the May 30 deadline for delivery of a Report of Waste Discharge to the Regional Board. He said Ione faces the reality of possible fines, and lost two months in the process. He said fines “could befall us” if the city does not show significant progress by May 30.

He said meeting the May 30 deadline would have been aggressive at best. He thought it would help if the city had substantial work done toward meeting the goal, but the good news is that in the two months lost before finally engaging Winzler & Kelly, there was a lot more public involvement and “a better understanding of the public as to what we were doing and why,” and it was time well spent through this community process.

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