Sludge Watch ==> Calif: Victor Valley Sewage Plant Bunged Up

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This is the plant that has been dropping its sludge on non agricultural lands in Newberry Springs.
Maybe this story explains the amount of toilet debris (plastic tampon applicators and the like) that is in the
desiccated sludge piled on those fields.  It is hard to understand how this sewage treatment plant is allowed 
to dump its sludge with no permits from the State or the County...even though there is a Landspreading Ordinance that
requires a permit in San Bernardino County.  The Dept of Environmental Health explained that they have
no intention of enforcing their sludge ordinance, now or ever.

Odd, huh?


.............................................................
Desert Dispatch
June 20, 2006  

  Sewage plant calls in the plumber


      VVWRA takes emergency action to deal with overload


        By TATIANA PROPHET Staff Writer



VICTORVILLE - The Victor Valley's sewage treatment plant is clogged.
And it's critical that the backup be dealt with before winter.
Long-term overload could result in contaminated water reaching the 
Mojave River and the communities north of here, including Helendale and 
Barstow.
"When I toured the plant, I knew we were organically overloaded," said 
Logan Olds, interim general manager of the Victor Valley Wastewater 
Regional Authority, who came on in late April as operations manager.
The VVWRA's board voted 4-0 Monday morning to waive competitive bidding 
requirements for cleanup of a crucial part of the plant in which 
bacteria break down biosolids. The project's allotment is capped at 
$99,500.
Faster than expected population growth is a major cause of the problem, 
Olds said.
"This all happened within a pretty short period of time," he said.
To deal with the backup, the plant had to essentially rob Peter to pay 
Paul by cleaning up one part of the plant and overloading another. Now 
the part that's overloaded - the "digesters" that unleash bacteria to 
"eat" the biosolids - needs an overhaul.
Olds wants to empty out the digesters as well as the lagoons that 
receive the remaining waste, or "sludge," and put the sludge on newly 
constructed drying beds.
Not only are the lagoons too full but contractors also need to dig under 
neath the lagoons to keep working on the plant expansion.
"These things are really full and adjacent to our percolation ponds," 
Olds said.
When the recycled water is clean, it goes into percolation ponds as well 
as the river.
If there were some sort of plant failure, material could reach the river 
and the groundwater.
>From an office in Victorville, Jehiel Cass monitors the VVWRA as water 
resources control engineer for the Lahontan Region of the state's Water 
Quality Control Board
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/archives/sludgewatch-l/attachments/20060620/72b388f0/attachment.htm