Santa Ana River Cleanup Plan OKd by Water Board

A costly cleanup of the long-besieged Santa Ana River was unanimously approved Friday by a regional water board, capping years of debate over how to resolve one of Southern California’s most severe water pollution problems.

Under the new plan, sewage plants in the Inland Empire must reduce nitrates in the millions of gallons of waste that flow daily into the river. Nitrates, a dangerous substance found in sewage, have already rendered large water supplies in Riverside County unsafe and pose a serious threat to Orange County’s drinking water as well.

Costing an estimated $200 million, the Santa Ana River project is the region’s most ambitious, controversial and expensive water cleanup. To comply, cities and water districts in the Inland Empire must build major new sewage-treatment systems and renovate old ones.

Approval by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board came despite concern from some Inland Empire representatives and board members themselves that the cleanup costs could threaten that area’s economy, with low-income residents hurt the most.

Funds for the improvements will come from an estimated $3 to $4 hike in monthly sewer bills for each household in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Because the waste originates in the Inland Empire, residents of those two counties must pay the cost, while Orange County reaps most of the benefits because its water is safeguarded.

“Even though it’s sometimes painful, we have to force solutions,” said Jerry A. King, a longtime member of the water board.

“We’ve had such mushrooming growth in the Inland Empire that the river has been unable to keep pace,” said King, owner of a Newport Beach land-use planning firm. “The problem is very serious and getting bigger, and none of the solutions are easy.”

The river, Southern California’s longest, flows 100 miles from the San Bernardino Mountains to the ocean off Huntington Beach and is composed almost entirely of treated sewage. Often maligned for its chocolate-colored flow, the Santa Ana River is nonetheless a vital source of drinking water because it feeds underground basins between Anaheim and San Bernardino.

Every day, more than 130 million gallons of waste water containing nitrogen, which forms nitrates, is released into the river from 18 city and regional waste-water plants between San Bernardino and Chino. Within a decade, the waste will almost double because of the area’s fast-growing population, officials predict.

The river can tolerate certain volumes of nitrogen, but that capacity has been overloaded, with water-quality goals violated consistently for the past five years, board reports show. Wells must be shut down when water supplies contain excessive nitrates because the chemical can cut off oxygen supplies in blood, causing lethal “blue baby” disease in infants.

Six of the 19 large river-fed water basins in the Inland Empire are already too contaminated with nitrates to use, and five others would have to be shut down or come perilously close to health limits by the year 2015 without the cleanup. About 50 out of Orange County’s 500 wells have also been shut down, but the nitrates probably came from fertilizer in old agricultural areas, not the river, officials say.

Adopted after four years of intensive study and debate, the board’s new rules limit future waste-water plants to 10 parts per million of nitrogen, while existing plants are limited to 13. It is the first time that limits will be placed on the individual plants, and some will have to cut the pollutant in half to meet the new standards.

Tackling nitrates is the beginning of the board’s efforts to revive the river. The agency next year plans to require the cities to clean up two other pollutants in their waste: salts, which can ruin drinking water, and ammonia, which endangers the river’s fish.

During a three-hour hearing Friday, several board members said they had no choice but to order the cleanup because of the poor condition of the river. But they expressed strong concerns about the impact on the cost of living in the two inland counties and urged the balancing of water-quality and environmental needs with economic concerns.

“The cumulative effect is driving industry and business out of the state of California,” said board member Ira Calvert, a former councilman from Corona. “You won’t have to worry about the water being clean enough to drink because there won’t be anyone left to drink it.”

Building the treatment systems will take three to five years. The board’s staff decided upon the limits after a three-year, $1-million study, a review of 10 options and several daylong meetings with Inland Empire city officials. While the plan must be formally accepted by the State Water Resources Control Board, cities expect to soon begin design plans for the construction of the new waste-water plants.

“The dischargers still may not be happy about it, but they recognize the handwriting is on the wall about the need for nitrogen control,” said Joanne Schneider, the water board’s environmental program manager.

In western Riverside County, several large underground basins are so polluted with nitrates that the water is undrinkable, and the contamination is flowing into Orange County, where it jeopardizes the valuable underground basin that supplies water to more than 2 million people.

“It’s a great deal of money, and we’re concerned the upstream dischargers have to go to this extreme. But we believe it’s necessary,” said William Mills, general manager of the Orange County Water District.

That district, which captures nearly all of the river’s flow in Anaheim to replenish the county’s ground-water basin, has been pushing for the stringent controls for years. Mills said the Orange County agency plans to offer its neighbors some help in flushing out nitrates by restoring water-purifying wetlands in Riverside County behind Prado Dam.

Water board Vice Chairman Tim Johnson issued a stern warning before making the motion to adopt the new rules. He said he will continue endorsing the river cleanup only if Orange County and Los Angeles County make progress in cleaning up their air pollution. That is only fair, he said, because while the Inland Empire is polluting Orange County’s water, Orange County is responsible for most of the thick smog that drifts over the Inland Empire.

In San Bernardino, city officials predicted that sewer bills will increase by 30%, up from $12.47 per month to $16.26, to pay for about $38 million in construction costs. They also warned that more rate hikes will follow because of the other proposed water-quality rules.

“There will be substantial impacts on housing in San Bernardino,” said Bernard Kersey, general manager of the city’s water department. “Three or four dollars may not sound significant, but when you add it all together, (monthly sewer bills) approach $20. That is significant for a lot of our citizens because they are low-income.”

In western Riverside County, the Chino Basin Municipal Water District estimates that the treatment systems will cost $100 million in construction and operation costs by the turn of the century. And Riverside city officials said they will spend about $24 million on construction, plus $300,000 per year in operation costs.

The new demands to cut down on nitrates will also mean that existing municipal waste-water plants, already overburdened from rapid growth, will lose up to 25% of their capacity, triggering the need for costly expansion.

“It’s too bad that the river has become so dirty that we have come to this,” said longtime board member Anita B. Smith from Rubidoux, near Riverside. “But we (in the Inland Empire) have to cooperate. After all, we’re the ones dirtying it, and it’s our problem to clean up.”

Troubled River

Nitrates in the Santa Ana River, a main source of drinking water in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, pose one of Southern California’s most severe water pollution problems. From San Bernardino to Chino, 18 sewage treatment plants (major ones shown on map) pump waste water containing nitrates into the river. The dangerous chemical seeps into the soil and has already rendered large amounts of ground water undrinkable. Under new rules adopted Friday, the plants must reduce nitrates in waste discharged into the river.

Source: Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board