GILROY
– South County cities have prevailed in a long-running legal
dispute with a state water quality agency over their desire to send
some treated wastewater to the Pajaro River during wet months.
GILROY – South County cities have prevailed in a long-running legal dispute with a state water quality agency over their desire to send some treated wastewater to the Pajaro River during wet months.
The South County Regional Wastewater Authority, which handles the disposal of Gilroy and Morgan Hill’s wastewater, had asked the court to force the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and the State Water Resources Control Board to grant permits that eventually would allow the cities to pipe highly treated wastewater into the river.
And in a May 29 decision, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cain agreed with SCRAW’s position that the water board had a duty to take action on the cities’ permit request. It also found there was no substantial evidence in the record to justify denying the permit.
“The court really agreed 100 percent with our position and felt we were wronged by the regional board,” SCRAW attorney Andrew Faber said Friday, a day after the order was issued.
SCRWA officials asked the water board for the permit in 1998 in order to augment the current practice of distributing South County municipal treated wastewater into the ground or using it to irrigate some South County parks, golf courses and farms. The water board is charged with protecting water along the coast from South County to Santa Barbara.
The request sought approval to discharge up to 9 million gallons a day of tertiary – or highly treated – water into the river, virtually all of the agency’s wet-weather flow at the time. Authority officials said they did not necessarily plan to use all of the extra capacity but said it was important during winter months when traditional disposal becomes more problematic as the water table rises and demand for treated wastewater for irrigation plummets.
Authority officials said the wet-weather river discharge method was cleared in previous environmental studies but needed a permit from the board to potentially get started. The authority alleged that the water board should grant the permit because the proposed discharge would meet all applicable environmental regulations – including the board’s own management document or “basin plan.”
Water board staff had recommended approval of the permit, but in a May 1998 hearing the board itself deadlocked completely on the issue, splitting 4-4 on three individual motions to delay the matter, deny the permit or approve it. The tie-breaking ninth board member was absent.
SCRWA appealed to the state water resources board, but that agency dismissed the petition eight months later with no comment. The lawsuit followed.
If the water board still wants to try to reject SCRAW’s permit, Faber said Cain’s order now requires the agency to submit detailed written findings specifying how the request fails to comply with the basin plan.
The water board has to provide a similar written record if it adds new requirements in the permit to address new state toxics regulations that have been adopted since the dispute began.
The water board also has to file a pleading with the court in three months explaining how it has followed up on the order.
“Now that the court has ruled in our favor, the board will understand when we come down for a permit we’re not a lightweight,” said Tom Springer, Gilroy mayor and SCRAW chairman. “We expect to get a fair hearing. What we’ve gotten now is a much-more level playing field.”
If it stands, the verdict gives the authority more flexibility on how to handle its future disposal needs.
The authority still has enough disposal capacity in its existing plant operations to last several years if the permit was denied, but officials said they were trying to plan ahead for future growth.
Authority officials are currently exploring a 120-acre wetlands disposal concept that would dispose of wastewater through a marsh before eventually sending it to the Pajaro through the Llagas Creek basin.
