Roseville, Placer Face $126,000 in Fines on Sewage Treatment

By Jennifer K. Morita, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Jul. 1–Roseville and Placer County may have to pay $126,000 in penalties for exceeding effluent limitations in treated sewage from wastewater treatment plants.

Central Valley Water Quality Control Board Assistant Executive Officer Jack DelConte has issued an administrative liability complaint against the city of Roseville for violations that occurred at the Dry Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and proposed $90,000 in penalties.

Between Jan. 1, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2007, the Roseville treatment plant exceeded limitations for a variety of substances, including chlorine residual, cyanide, total coliform organisms and turbidity, according to a water board news release.

“Protecting our water resources is a vital concern of the city,” Roseville Communications Manager Megan MacPherson said. “We are reviewing every one of the violations to see if we agree, if it was something our monitoring system caught or didn’t catch.”

MacPherson said the Dry Creek plant operated at a compliance level of 99.93 percent during the same seven-year period the water board examined, a period that included the flood of January 2007.

In a separate complaint, the county Facilities Services Department was hit with $36,000 in penalties for violations between Jan. 1, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2007, at its wastewater treatment plant serving unincorporated north Auburn.

Effluent limitation violations included chlorine residual, total coliform organisms, total suspended solids and turbidity.

County Facilities Department Deputy Director Will Dickinson said a draft of the complaint had proposed a higher penalty, but after his staff responded, water board officials agreed to reduce it.

“This is several years of little violations here and there, and some of them have been addressed through previous treatment plant upgrades,” Dickinson said.

The water board will consider both complaints and evaluate the proposed fines at its meeting Sept. 11 or 12.

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