Sludge Watch ==> Plan to force grape growers to use sewage effluent stopped

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

California desperately needs a water conservation campaign!
Farmers forced to use sewage wastes for irrigation - look at the food safety 
issues.
The Salton Sea is being sold off to San Diego...and will leave the lower 
part of Imperial
County California a big blowing dust bowl....just like the draining of 
Owen's Lake.

"The lake bed is probably the largest single source of PM10 dust (aerosol 
particles smaller than 10 microns in aerodynamic diameter) in the United 
States; by one estimate, 900,000-8,000,000 metric tons per year (Gill and 
Gillette, 1991)"

Little communities that have some water need to hang on to it...or the 
coastal communities will flush them out of house and home.

Desert communities should not be using water so wantonly...for the big 
cities are already  putting sewage effluent onto agricultural crops and into 
drinking water reservoirs.
.............................................

Dry Creek wastewater pact nullified by court order

Opponents said lawsuit uncovered “Trojan horse”
By Barry Dugan, Managing Editor

A pact between a group of Dry Creek Valley property owners and the Sonoma 
County Water Agency, which could have forced grape growers to used 1.5 
billion gallons of wastewater per year in place of fresh water pumped from 
the valley and Dry Creek, has been nullified by a judge who agreed with 
opponents that such an agreement must undergo environmental review.

Opponents of the plan say their lawsuit uncovered a “Trojan horse” scenario 
that would have brought billions of gallons of treated wastewater into one 
of the world's premiere growing regions, endangering world-class soils and 
threatening groundwater quality.

The agreement between the SCWA and the Dry Creek Agricultural Water Users 
would have obligated the group to use up to 6,000 acre feet of wastewater 
per year through the year 2022.

The successful legal challenge by the Landowners for Water Rights, comes at 
a time when the SCWA is releasing a draft EIR on the proposed North Sonoma 
County Agricultural Reuse Project, a massive system of pipelines and 
reservoirs that would bring billions of gallons of wastewater from the Santa 
Rosa Geysers pipeline to the Dry Creek and Alexander valleys.


At the same time, Santa Rosa is reviewing similar plans to store millions of 
gallons of wastewater in the north county for agricultural use and discharge 
into the Russian River.

The Water Agency's stated goal in the agreement was to resolve competing 
water rights issues and “better manage the water resources in the Dry Creek 
Valley,” according to an agency release last year.

Healdsburg Attorney Edwin Wilson, who represents the Landowners for Water 
Rights in the lawsuit against the Water Agency, said water rights are not 
the issue at all. “They say they are getting water rights,but the agency is 
not getting any water rights at all,” he said.

“The Agency has slipped a Trojan Horse into the agreement,” Wilson argued in 
his court document, in which “Members are contractually obligated to take 
and use ‘substitute water' (which includes wastewater) in lieu of fresh Dry 
Creek water.”

The ruling last week by Judge Elaine Rushing agreed with Wilson's argument 
that the SCWA pact with the Dry Creek Agricultural Water Users, Inc. was 
subject to the California Environmental Quality Act because the agreement 
“may cause a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in 
the environment,” and therefore qualifies it as a “project” under the law.

“If (wastewater) gets into the groundwater, it is, for all practical 
purposes, there forever,” said Wilson. “It is very difficult to try and 
reverse that. The Dry Creek Valley has Class I soil ... the finest 
agricultural soil in the world. What we're playing with is our two most 
precious commodities, soil and water ... to take our most precious 
commodities and put them at risk is unacceptable.”

Jill Golis, an attorney with the County Counsel's office, said “I'm 
disappointed with the ruling.”

Golis, who said it is too early to say if county officials will appeal the 
ruling, disagreed with the judge's opinion. “There was nothing in the Dry 
Creek agreement that required the water agency to move forward with any 
recycled water project,” she said, and therefore it did not require a CEQA 
review.

Fred Corson, who represents the Landowners for Water Rights, believes the 
Water Agency has a larger agenda than resolving water rights. “To me, the 
agenda is very clear,” said Corson. “The more wastewater they can force on 
ag users and gain control of water they are pumping, the more water they 
have available to sell to their urban customers.”

The SCWA supplies water to more than 600,000 customers in Sonoma and Marin 
counties. It controls the water released from Lake Sonoma that flows down 
Dry Creek and to the Russian River, eventually being diverted above the 
Wohler Bridge. Diversions by landowners in Dry Creek Valley “is of concern 
because the Agency is required to maintain certain minimum streamflows” in 
Dry Creek.

Pam Jeane, deputy, chief engineer with the SCWA, said the agency is awaiting 
direction from the Board of Supervisors as to whether a new agreement will 
be considered.

Wilson believes the Dry Creek water agreement “is the last piece in the 
waste water puzzle. There is plenty of waste water being produced in the 
area, but no place to dump it ... this would have allowed anyone to bring 
waste water in ... it's pretty clear that they want to make Dry Creek Valley 
the poster child for its waste water plans.”

Jeane said the agency doesn't share that view. “We see the agreement as 
being one that says we are going to cooperate with the landowners in the Dry 
Creek Valley and work togther to manage the water resources in the Dry Creek 
Valley.”

She said the judge's decision to nullify the agreement is not good for those 
landowners who were involved. “That agreement provided certainty to those 
landonwers ... they no longer have that certainly that if they participated 
that we would not contest their water use.”

In addition to requiring landowners to take wastewater in lieu of fresh 
water, the proposed agreement forbid them from opposing the Water Agency's 
efforts to develop groundwater or wastewater in the Dry Creek Valley.

Corson said the wastewater being proposed for irrigation meets only minimal 
quality regulations, and contains numerous potentially dangerous 
contaminants. “In my opinion, a minimum expectation is that contamination of 
both surface waters and groundwater will occur,” he wrote in a letter to the 
Board of Supervisors last year.

Jeane said that the agency considers the use of recycled wastewater to be 
safe and its use for irrigation and frost protection falls within the 
guidelines established by the state Department of Health Services.

Corson also pointed out that the SCWA and Dry Creek water agreement would 
have constituted about a third of the North Sonoma County Agricultural Reuse 
Project, which is undergoing an environmental impact report. “If that 
project requires CEQA review then so must this contract,” he wrote.

Wilson said Corson's vigilance in detecting the impacts of the wastewater 
plan were critical for the future of the North County. “Now there's not 
going to be a Trojan Horse anymore,” he said. “Everyone is going to be 
watching.

With water supply becoming a critical issue, Wilson said “from now on and 
into the foreseeable future. we're going to have the water wars. Everybody 
is running out of water.”

http://www.sonomawest.com/articles/2007/03/22/healdsburg/news/news1.txt