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Yuba City Water Getting Upgrade

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 October 2005, 15:00 CDT

By John Dickey, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

Oct. 18--Yuba City's water treatment plant upgrade would eliminate the kind of water problems experienced earlier this year when chemicals known as disinfectant byproducts edged above water-quality standards, a city official said.

The plant upgrade is being done to provide water to an increasing city population. But it's also going to reduce water problems.

"It's part of the upgrade at the water treatment plant to reduce these byproducts," said Bill Lewis, the city's utilities director.

The city is changing over to a membrane filtration system from its current sand, gravel and anthracite system. That change will improve the reliability of bacteria filtration for the city's drinking water, said Lewis.

The city's plant upgrade also includes a change in the chlorination process. By 2007, the city will add chlorine after filtration rather than before.

It sounds esoteric, but the change is expected to reduce disinfectant byproducts. Chlorine used to disinfect drinking water can react with organic matter in the water to form disinfectant byproduct chemicals. Some of them, such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, are suspected to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

In the second quarter of 2005, the haloacetic acid level in the Yuba City's surface water supply edged over drinking-water standards set by the state Department of Health Services.

State health officials call for haloacetic acid levels of no more than 60 micrograms per liter. The city's water was measured at 63 micrograms per liter during the quarter.

The spike was caused by a change in the Feather River's water, said Lewis. Since then, levels have gone down well below the limits, and Lewis expects the city's annual average to fall within state standards for this year.

Elevated levels of haloacetic acid for one quarter did not result in a water-quality violation. The limits would have to be exceeded for a year before a violation would occur.

Lewis said the haloacetic acid levels also did not pose any risk to public health. The drinking water standards are typically set at the point that would result in a one in a million chance of a laboratory animal contracting cancer - if the animal drank two quarts a day of the water for 70 years.

Exceeding the haloacetic acid standards for one quarter is a long way from 70 years, said Lewis. But it's not acceptable, he said.

Yuba City water customers received notices in their bills about the elevated levels of haloacetic acids, and the city ran a legal ad explaining the problem.

The Yuba City City Council in August awarded a $21.6 million contract to expand the water treatment plant by 6 million gallons per day, part of a $265 million plan to provide water beyond current city limits. The plant's current capacity is 24 million gallons per day.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

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Source: Appeal-Democrat

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