GILROY
– Nearly five years after it began, a dispute over South County
cities’ desire to send treated wastewater to the Pajaro River
during wet months may be played out in a courtroom next week after
the failure of ongoing settlement attempts.
GILROY – Nearly five years after it began, a dispute over South County cities’ desire to send treated wastewater to the Pajaro River during wet months may be played out in a courtroom next week after the failure of ongoing settlement attempts.
The lawsuit filed by the South County Regional Wastewater Authority, or SCRWA, against regional and state water agencies, is tentatively slated to go before a Santa Clara County judge Monday.
It casts SCRWA’s argument – that the proposal is a proactive effort to plan and pump small amounts of relatively clean water into the Pajaro – against the water board’s assertion that the cities did not work hard enough to address environmental and flooding concerns before moving their request up the political ladder.
The authority, which handles the disposal of Gilroy and Morgan Hill’s wastewater, is asking the court to force the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and the State Water Resources Control Board to grant permits that would eventually allow the cities to pipe treated water into the river.
The authority alleges that the board should grant the permit because the discharge would meet all applicable environmental regulations – including the board’s own management document or “basin plan.”
“The thrust of our lawsuit is under the state water code, the regional board is required to grant a (permit) when the discharge complies with their basin plan – and this did,” said SCRWA attorney Andrew Faber.
However, officials with the Central Coast Board – charged with protecting water along the coast from South County to Santa Barbara – say the cities did not exhaust their options to secure approval from the board before proceeding with an appeal and the subsequent lawsuit.
“They had the opportunity (to return), and it just seems inappropriate to go to court … ” said Roger Briggs, the Central Coast board’s executive officer. “It really should be an administrative process and that’s why boards are set up on these things. It seems like they haven’t exhausted the process.”
SCRWA officials asked the water board for the permit in 1998 in order to augment the current practice of distributing treated wastewater into the ground or using it to irrigate some South Valley parks, golf courses and farms.
Authority officials said the extra capacity is especially important during the winter months, when wastewater flows increase but traditional disposal becomes more problematic because the water table rises and demand for treated wastewater for irrigation plummets.
The wet-weather river discharge method was cleared in previous environmental studies, Faber said, but needed a permit from the board to potentially get started. After two years of work, Faber said the Central Coast board’s staff recommended SCRWA’s request for a permit be approved and noted it was in compliance with regulations.
However, in a May 29, 1998, hearing, the board deadlocked 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, Faber said. The lawsuit followed.
“We said, ‘Look, we have to have some remedy here,’ ” he said.
But staff and attorneys for the Central Coast board said SCRWA was asked at the original hearing to secure more information and then return to the board again later – a request they said is not out of the ordinary in government.
“It was a little unusual (SCRWA) decided just to fight that and insist the board should have adopted the permit based on the evidence before them already, as opposed to coming back with information,” Briggs said.
Water board officials also note that any new proposal to discharge wastewater into surface water is likely to draw heavy scrutiny and criticism from environmentalists and downstream residents.
Concerns among the four board members who voted no at the 1998 hearing centered around potential impacts on fish and endangered species, as well as flooding after testimony, board staff said. The river, which is considered officially “impaired” for nutrients and sedimentation problems, flows to Monterey Bay and its national wildlife refuge and had recently experienced flooding.
However, Faber said the piped-in water would make up far less than 1 percent of the flows that cause winter flooding on the Pajaro. And it would actually improve water quality in the river at the time it’s discharged, he said.
Since the original vote, SCRWA is also exploring a concept where some wastewater would be discharged into newly created wetlands created near the plant – although overflow could still enter the Pajaro.
While SCRWA officials say the authority still has enough disposal capacity in its existing plant operations to last a while if the permit is denied, they are trying to plan ahead and work around land availability issues that limit their options for traditional disposal.
“We still have quite a bit of capacity – we have several years … ” said Gilroy City Administrator Jay Baksa, who is also SCRWA’s executive officer. “But those five or six years where you think you have leeway go real fast. It’s never too early to start.”
