Sludge Watch ==> Calif: Victor Valley sewage plant - violations for effluent - hinky sludge use

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The story below is about problems at the Victor Valley sewage treatment 
plant...spills and exceedences and violations of their wastewater 
requirements.

The Victor Valley sewage sludge has some hinky happenings, too.

The sludge is air dried (don't recall air drying in the 503 list of approved 
processes to further
reduce pathogens) or else it is thrown in together with hydrocarbon 
contaminated soil that is
thermally processed at the Adelanto TPS contaminated soil treatment plant.

They throw in the sludge to bring down the temperature of the hot soil after 
it is heated to release the petroleum contamination.  Then the soil/sludge 
mixture is considered Class A material suitable for land application.  (Ya 
gotta love that..don't you want to eat from fields spread with biosolids 
ammended contaminated soil tailings?...oh - come on...they claim its Class 
A...Don't you want to live next to fields spread with tailings from 
contaminated soil and sludge?)

And indeed Victor Valley sewage sludge is being dumped on farm fields in 
Newberry Springs..remember the little desert oasis that is home to the 
famous Bagdad Cafe? (think: movie with Jack 
Palance...http://www.percyadlon.com/films/bagdad_cafe.html). This is the 
same plucky community that has been working to ward off being the next home 
to Nursery Products sludge 'composting'.  Now Hinkley - another desert 
community to the west of Newberry is the proposed mega sludge site)

Meanwhile back in Newberry Springs, the sludge is received by a landless 
farmer named Eric Archibek, and put on lands that he doesn't own.   And he 
fails to tell the owner that they have sludge on their land (he tells them 
it is dairy manure).  And he fails to get a permit from the San Bernardino 
Department of Environmental Health....a requirement under the San Bernardino 
Sludge Landspreading Ordinance.

Want to know more about how sludge is mixed with the contaminated soil at 
TPS in Adelanto?

>From a technical memorandum CH2MHill produced for Orange County:

"TPS Technologies Inc.TPS Technologies is a subsidiary of
Thermo Processing Systems, which has nine soil recycling facilities in the 
U.S.,
including the contaminated soil thermal processing plant and green waste
composting facility located at Adelanto, near Mojave, California. This 
thermal
processing facility has one rotary drum dryer unit, and the proposal is to 
mix
the biosolids with the soil prior to treatment. The dryer operates at a
temperature of 650°F to 750°F, and the dried product that exits the dryer is
stockpiled, where it maintains a temperature over 200°F for 3 hours or more. 
If
the dryer is out of service for maintenance, the biosolids could be diverted 
to
the composting facility; there is also considerable onsite storage for up to
35,000 tons. The facility is located in an industrial area in the desert, 
with
only the storage area enclosed in a building. Odors and other perception 
issues
are considered to be mitigated by the location. Emissions control is 
provided by
a cyclone, thermal oxidizer, cool air heat exchanger and baghouse.

TPS markets
products under a subsidiary “TPS Nursery Product” and sends material to farm
land, golf courses, orchards, and composting. Concerns with the operation
include system reliability, odor control, and safety issues due to 
stockpiling
biosolids at high temperatures, as well as the fact that soil recycling will
take precedence over biosolids treatment. The fact that the biosolids could 
be
diverted to a composting facility could be of benefit, although there is a
concern that if the facility is operating at capacity as it is at present, 
most
of the biosolids would be sent to the composting operation rather than 
dried."

Eric Archibek showed me documents suggesting his biosolids ammendments were 
high in lead.
A high lead content could be expected from contaminated soils. He doesn't 
pay for the sludge...he gets paid to take it and dump it on lands he doesn't 
own - without informing the owner.

There is very little regulatory oversight of sludges in California.  In 
fact, it seems if you want to get rid of highly contaminated materials, it 
seems that mixing it in some sludge can provide the laxity of oversight that 
allows your otherwise highly regulated waste stream to be distributed with 
little scrutiny...under cover of the lax provisions and lax oversight 
provided for sludges and sludge mixtures under the 503s.
........................................................................................


http://www.vvdailypress.com/2006/114891552098525.html



May 29, 2006 Monday

Keeping ahead of the flush: Wastewater plant rushes to meet growth demands
Tatiana Prophet, Desert Dispatch, Barstow, Calif.


VICTORVILLE

More than 40,000 people have moved to the Victor Valley since 2000, and they 
are flushing more toilets and taking more showers than ever before.
The population growth is forcing the valley's wastewater plant to run a race 
against time to try to deal with excess flows as they expand capacity.
"Most people just flush their toilet and forget about us, and yet we're so 
critical to the environment of the region and the public health of the 
region," said Logan Olds, newly appointed interim general manager of the 
Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority.
With the departure of General Manager Dan Gallagher, the responsibility of 
overseeing construction and wastewa-ter treatment rests with Olds, who came 
on as new operations manager April 26 and got his new post May 15. He was 
previously general manager in Susanville, 82 miles north of Reno, Nev.

Two phases are under construction: the first phase, costing $22.5 million, 
is to be finished by October 2007 and would expand the plant to be able to 
discharge 14.5 million gallons a day. The second, costing $23.5 million, is 
set to be finished by mid-2008 and would expand capacity further to 18 
million gallons a day.

In the meantime, the plant has been dealing with flows that are at times 
exceeding the daily limit allowed by the Lahontan Region of the state's 
Water Quality Control Board -- 12.5 million gallons per day.

According to self-monitoring reports submitted by the VVWRA, peak daily 
flows of effluent, or treated water exit-ing the plant, have exceeded 12.5 
million gallons per day several times in the last year. The plant has also 
exceeded its limits for turbidity (cloudiness) and total suspended solids, 
which are solids that can be trapped by a filter.

Violations mounted in March and April.

On March 29, there was a spill in Hesperia of 1,000 gallons of untreated 
sewage and stormwater that escaped from an interceptor -- the pipe that 
directs sewage to the treatment plant. The reason, according to a report by 
VVWRA, was the result of "unpermitted stormwater entering the collection 
system from an unknown location upstream."

For the whole month of March, the flow of effluent to the Mojave River 
averaged 10.24 million gallons a day, nearly 2 million gallons more than 
allowed, because high groundwater levels and algae buildup prevented the 
percola-tion ponds from taking as much water as they should. Percolation 
ponds are about five feet deep and are dug into the hills above the plant. 
The effluent that cannot go in the river flows into the ponds or is used to 
irrigate the golf course at Southern California Logistics Airport.

Jehiel Cass, water resources control engineer for the Lahontan Region, said 
rapid population and development growth in the Victor Valley is causing the 
sewage plant to bump against permitted limits, and during times of extra 
rain-fall, that means there is zero room to prevent spills.
"It makes a situation where they don't have the flexibility to address 
getting rid of the biosolids that they need to," he said.

It's no secret for Olds that growth is a serious issue.
" G row t h i m p a c t o n this facility has been very significant," he 
said. "We are operating at a capacity which makes it difficult to deal with 
plant upsets, storm events -- anything that is extraordinary. That is why 
we're moving forward on this construction project as quickly as we can."
Olds said he was concerned about exceeding limits between now and October 
2007, but added that VVWRA and Lahontan are going to "work through those 
issues."