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Water District to Study Bay Overflow Pollution

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 October 2005, 21:00 CDT

By Cassandra Braun, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Oct. 12--When a storm hits, torrential rainfall can infiltrate household and industrial waste water, at times inundating treatment plants, and overflowing into roads and into the Bay with little purification.

This, environmental groups say, contributes to the Bay's hazardous levels of pollution after a storm, rendering its waters unsafe for swimming and fishing.

Last month environ-mentalists moved closer to seeing those concerns addressed by one of the Bay Area's largest water treatment agencies, East Bay Municipal Utility District.

After a year and a half of negotiations, three environ-mental groups have reached an agreement with EBMUD to work together to reduce pollution released into the Bay during wet weather.

"I'm really pleased that East Bay MUD stepped up to the plate and was proactive and willing to do the right thing," said Tiffany Schauer, founder and executive director of Our Children's Earth, the lead environmental group in the agreement, which also included Baykeeper and the Ecological Rights Foundation.

EBMUD was not named in the initial suit filed late last year by Our Children's Earth against the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board. The suit charged the water board with failing to reissue to EBMUD an updated permit that sets current guidelines for discharging water into the Bay. EBMUD intervened on its own to forestall the lawsuit.

Under the terms of the agreement, EBMUD will participate in a series of studies over the next five years that look at increasing the level of treatment and storage at the agency's wet weather water facilities, special storage centers used during heavy rains.

Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont and El Cerrito are among the cities the agency serves for wastewater treatment.

While the studies are being completed, the water agency will also look into diverting storm water to its main treatment plant in Oakland before it is released into waterways. Currently, rain runoff goes directly into the Bay where it becomes another major source of pollutants, environmentalists say.

"It's really a win-win for both sides," said Dave Williams, EBMUD director of Waste Water. "We're trying to accomplish the same goal -- that is to protect the Bay and protect public health ... There's been this historical friction between environmental groups and publicly owned treatment agencies which at the end of the day were viewed as a source of pollutants to the Bay."

"But we don't always have to be at odds. When the two come together and work cooperatively we can have something beneficial," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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