TheCableVine
June 17th, 2008, 05:14 AM
rosevillept.com (http://www.rosevillept.com/detail/86821.html)
Placer County and the city of Roseville face a $126,000 fine for a sewage spill that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of effluent into Dry Creek last year.
An administrative civil liability complaint issued late last month by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board also indicates the spill, which occurred Dec. 1, 2007, was much larger than originally reported.
More than 550,000 gallons of sewage gushed from a main connecting several Dry Creek communities to the Pleasant Grove Wastewater Treatment Plant in Roseville. Of that, 455,000 gallons discharged into the waterway, according to the complaint. Officials originally stated the spill was about 100,000 gallons.
The incident, which occurred near the Cook-Riolo bridge, closed a portion of Dry Creek west of Roseville for about a week due to potential health hazards.
“It’s definitely one of the largest spills we’ve had in this area recently,” said Wendy Wyels, compliance and enforcement supervisor for the board, in a phone interview.
The complaint says Placer County did not accurately mark the position of the main within legal limits for “approximate location.” The main was punctured by employees of Collet Construction while working on the Creekview Ranch Middle School. (Collet is not named in the complaint.)
Further, communications problem between the county and city delayed the closing of an isolation valve at the treatment plant, which increased the amount of raw sewage going into the creek, according to the complaint. The pressurized main remained open for about three hours, it said, as sewage flowed backward from the treatment plant through the force main and out of the break.
“Because of poor communication between the two groups it took Roseville a while to turn the valve to stop water from flowing out of the plant,” Wyels said.
But Jim Durfee, facilities director for Placer County, defended city and county actions that day.
He said last week the complaint contains some “factual errors” that county and city staff will bring up at a meeting with board officials this week.
“The reality was both the city of Roseville and the county were in close contact with each other,” he said. “We were sharing resources. There was an awful lot of equipment out there working on stuff. We were coordinating together pretty well.”
He also said there were other indicators identifying the sewage line location, and that officials could not simply turn off the spigot to turn off the flow.
The complaint “…doesn’t consider the fact that there’s some calculation and decision making that takes place when turning off valves at a treatment plant,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s our opinion that the administrative liability complaint is way out of line,” he added.
Placer County and Roseville were scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the complaint with representatives from the water board.
The board was slated to take up the complaint at its meeting to begin July 31.
Placer County and the city of Roseville face a $126,000 fine for a sewage spill that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of effluent into Dry Creek last year.
An administrative civil liability complaint issued late last month by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board also indicates the spill, which occurred Dec. 1, 2007, was much larger than originally reported.
More than 550,000 gallons of sewage gushed from a main connecting several Dry Creek communities to the Pleasant Grove Wastewater Treatment Plant in Roseville. Of that, 455,000 gallons discharged into the waterway, according to the complaint. Officials originally stated the spill was about 100,000 gallons.
The incident, which occurred near the Cook-Riolo bridge, closed a portion of Dry Creek west of Roseville for about a week due to potential health hazards.
“It’s definitely one of the largest spills we’ve had in this area recently,” said Wendy Wyels, compliance and enforcement supervisor for the board, in a phone interview.
The complaint says Placer County did not accurately mark the position of the main within legal limits for “approximate location.” The main was punctured by employees of Collet Construction while working on the Creekview Ranch Middle School. (Collet is not named in the complaint.)
Further, communications problem between the county and city delayed the closing of an isolation valve at the treatment plant, which increased the amount of raw sewage going into the creek, according to the complaint. The pressurized main remained open for about three hours, it said, as sewage flowed backward from the treatment plant through the force main and out of the break.
“Because of poor communication between the two groups it took Roseville a while to turn the valve to stop water from flowing out of the plant,” Wyels said.
But Jim Durfee, facilities director for Placer County, defended city and county actions that day.
He said last week the complaint contains some “factual errors” that county and city staff will bring up at a meeting with board officials this week.
“The reality was both the city of Roseville and the county were in close contact with each other,” he said. “We were sharing resources. There was an awful lot of equipment out there working on stuff. We were coordinating together pretty well.”
He also said there were other indicators identifying the sewage line location, and that officials could not simply turn off the spigot to turn off the flow.
The complaint “…doesn’t consider the fact that there’s some calculation and decision making that takes place when turning off valves at a treatment plant,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s our opinion that the administrative liability complaint is way out of line,” he added.
Placer County and Roseville were scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the complaint with representatives from the water board.
The board was slated to take up the complaint at its meeting to begin July 31.