Amador County – The city of Ione last week received a “draft cease and desist order and connection restriction” for its wastewater treatment facility, pending a state board’s approval in April.
The order would halt new sewer connections to the city’s system beginning on Jan. 1, the date of the notice of public hearing on the matter, with a response period closing Jan. 31.
A Jan. 21 letter from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board and its Compliance and Enforcement Supervisor Wendy Wyels said “due to the city’s violations of waste discharge requirements” and a previous Cease and Desist order from 2003, the “Central Valley Water Board’s prosecution team is proposing that the Board issue” the order at its April meeting.
“The proposed order sets forth a scope and schedule to plan, design and construct improvements to address groundwater degradation and seepage of degraded groundwater into Sutter Creek,” Wyels said. “The proposed order also prohibits new connections to the wastewater treatment facility” owned and operated by the city of Ione.
Wyels said the order would prohibit new connections because “the city has not complied with” a 2003 cease & desist order. She said another reason was that “current wastewater flows exceed or threaten to exceed the treatment facility’s current disposal capacity.” A third reason was that “any increase in influent flows would increase the level of pollutants discharged into Sutter Creek via groundwater seepage.”
She said “the proposed order includes new flow limits to reflect the actual treatment and disposal capacity of the wastewater treatment facility.”
City Manager Kim Kerr said an isotope study of samples from Sutter Creek and ponds should show whether or not there is seepage coming from the city’s storage ponds that is getting into the creek. The Regional Board has declared it as seepage, while the city wants proof that it is seepage, through the test.
The positive finding of seepage from the wastewater pond would mean the city would need to get a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. A negative result would not require that.
Kerr said a draft report of the isotope study was out but she had not seen it, and she hoped to have the report findings available for the Feb. 1 meeting Tuesday of the city council. She plans to update the council on the status of the isotope test. She said the Regional Board will tell the city what it needs to do in reaction to the isotope test results.
She will be scheduling a meeting with the Regional Board in the next two weeks to see if the city can answer the question about confirming whether or not there is seepage leaking from the pond.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
