Waste Water Proposal May Increase Bills

Concerned that salty waste water in the Santa Clara River is harming avocado crops, state officials are proposing a solution that could boost Santa Clarita Valley residents’ sanitation bills by as much as $400 a year, according to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

The funds would be used to improve the area’s waste water treatment system and help bring the river into closer alignment with the federal Clean Water Act.

City leaders and some homeowners are complaining about the potential rate hike. Others say something has to be done to rectify a problem brought on by the intense development of the region.

County sanitation officials estimate that nearly half the salt in the river comes from some residential water softeners, which release brine. The devices are common in many Santa Clarita homes, where mineral-rich “hard” water complicates everyday tasks, such as washing dishes, clothes and hair.

With more housing tracts planned, “it’s imperative that the community does something to ensure that the water going into the river complies with the Clean Water Act,” said Lynne Plambeck, a Santa Clarita resident and water activist. “This is a cost of development that someone must pay for a clean water supply.”

Santa Clarita resident Tom DiCioccio argues that it’s a bad time for a rate hike. “We just passed two school bonds up here--now they’re talking about another $400,” he said. “It’s adding up awful quick. People are going to start losing their homes over this stuff.”

The plan would reduce the river’s levels of chlorides, a group of salty compounds that harm avocado crops in downstream Ventura County, some farmers there say. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board, charged with protecting ground water quality, votes Feb. 28 on the proposal, the first of several such steps.

To meet the new standard, the proposal suggests that the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts regulate the use of some automatic water softeners, water board engineer Jon Bishop said.

But Vicki Conway, head of treatment plant monitoring for the sanitation districts, said her agency has little power in the matter. A 1999 state law to allow local agencies to regulate water softeners was weakened by amendments to placate the powerful water-conditioning industry and is virtually useless, she said.

The Water Quality Assn., one of the softener industry’s main trade groups, initially opposed the bill. Tom Palkon, the group’s lab director, said he doubts water softeners are a significant contributor to the Santa Clara’s chloride problem. Detergents and other household products could be culprits, he said.

“They’re looking for a scapegoat, and we’re an easy one,” he said.

The inability of the districts to regulate water softeners leaves few other options, Conway said. One, which the board will recommend, calls for the installation of a sophisticated reverse osmosis system to wash out the salts and construction of a 45-mile pipeline to carry the leftover salt solution to the Pacific Ocean.

Installing such a system at the treatment plants in Saugus and Valencia would cost $375 million and result in the quadrupling of local water bills, Conway said. But water board officials say her estimate is too high.

Sanitation officials also say the proposed salt levels may be unrealistic. The plan would lower the amount of salt in the water from 142 to 100 parts per 1 million at measuring points downstream from the two treatment plants.

Conway said no other state water district has set a level as low as 100. “The next lowest in the state is 142,” she said.

Currently, the levels of chlorides at the measuring stations are as high as 137 parts per million, said Sam Unger, an engineer for the water board. He added that it is his agency’s legal obligation to be concerned about the highly sensitive avocados, a big business in Ventura County.

Matthew Freeman, general manager of Camulos Ranch Co. in Ventura, said he already has seen damage to the leaves on his avocado trees and suspects the high salt levels are to blame.

“This is certainly a concern,” Freeman said. “If [the salt levels] continue to increase, it will start to have more and more of an impact--even on other crops.”

The proposal to reduce the salt in the river was prompted by a successful 1999 lawsuit filed against the federal Environmental Protection Agency by a number of Los Angeles environmental groups, Bishop said.

In a consent decree, the court told the regional water board to adopt guidelines addressing 92 pollution problems in Ventura and Los Angeles counties over the next 12 years.

The regional water board set new chloride guidelines in Ventura County’s Calleguas watershed earlier this year, Unger said, and a reverse osmosis and pipeline system is in the planning stages there.