SANTA CLARA RIVER : Proposed Water Standards Relaxed

A state agency that regulates surface and ground water quality agreed Monday to relax proposed standards for waste water discharge into the Santa Clara River.

The agency also backed away from stricter standards for treated sewage discharged into holding ponds that can trickle into the ground-water supply.

The proposed standards would have reduced the level of two pollutants that Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru sewage treatment plants can release in their treated waste water.

Instead, the Regional Water Quality Control Board let stand current standards for salts (or chlorides) and boron, a naturally occurring mineral. The board will study the issue and return to make a final decision on the standards in six months, said Anne Saffell, senior engineering geologist for the Los Angeles-based water quality board.

The tougher standards would allow more fish to thrive in the Santa Clara River and would produce higher-quality recycled water to irrigate citrus orchards and recharge underground drinking water supplies.

Santa Paula discharges treated waste water into the river. Fillmore and Piru use spreading grounds--special ponds--to dispose of waste water, which can percolate into the ground-water supply.

However, the higher levels of the pollutants allowed by current standards fall well within state Department of Health Services regulations for drinking water, Saffell said.

The board agreed to the relaxed standards Monday after Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru objected to higher standards for their discharged water.

The technology needed to remove the pollutants would cost millions of dollars, said Norman Wilkinson, Santa Paula public works director. The communities would have to build an expensive reverse-osmosis plant to remove salts, he said.

“It’s more likely we would build a pipeline to discharge farther down the river where it would be legal,” he said.

Moreover, both chlorides and boron, along with a host of other contaminants, are already in drinking water.

But Mark Capelli of Friends of the Ventura River said postponement of the decision is only going make the problem worse.

“The longer they delay in getting the plants up to the necessary standards, the more expensive it gets,” Capelli said.

Also on Monday, the board toughened standards for water clarity and for pollutants collectively called total dissolved solids, which include sulfates.

The standards are part of the Santa Clara River Basin Plan, which sets water quality standards for Ventura County. The plan was drafted in 1975 and had not been amended since 1978.