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CSPA appeals Lake Wildwood Wastewater Treatment Plant permit, says Regional Board's approval ignores numerous violations
March 12, 2009 -- CSPA has appealed the recently issued wastewater discharge permit for the Nevada County Sanitation District No. 1, Lake Wildwood Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility discharges up to 1.12 million gallons a day of treated wastewater into Deer Creek, which is tributary to the Yuba River. The permit was approved 5 February 2009 by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board and appealed to the State Water Resources Control Board on 4 March 2009.
CSPA's petition alleges that the Regional Board ignored specific regulatory requirements mandated by the federal Clean Water Act. Among the numerous violations, the Regional Board failed to require the discharger to properly characterize the discharge and failed to evaluate alternatives to discharging to low flow streams, as required by the Basin Plan. The permit fails to contain legally defensible scientifically based water quality limits for settable solids, copper, carbon tetrachloride, diquat, MBAS, aldrin, lindane, silver, alphahexachlorocyclohexane, electrical conductivity, temperature and oil & grease. It includes an inadequate antidegradation analysis, uses incorrect statistical multipliers in its reasonable potential analysis, improperly establishes effluent limits based on effluent hardness rather than ambient hardness, illegally backslides from the previous permit, fails to contain required mass limits, includes improper compliance schedules for dibromochloromethane and dichlorobromomethane, and violates provisions related to chronic toxicity.
The Lake Wildwood permit continues the Schwarzeneger Administration's business-friendly policy of ignoring explicit requirements mandated by federal law in issuing permits for wastewater discharge. This U-turn in environmental protection increasingly threatens California's already depressed fisheries.
CSPA routinely reviews, provides comments and, where necessary, appeals and litigates Regional Board permits that are not protective of fisheries and beneficial uses and fail to conform to regulatory requirements. The State Water Board has 270 days to act upon an appeal of a Regional Board action.