The Faucet

In FRONTLINE’s Poisoned Waters, airing Tuesday, April 21, 2009, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith examines the growing hazards to human health and the ecosystem.

“The ’70s were a lot about, ‘We’re the good guys; we’re the environmentalists; we’re going to go after the polluters,’ and it’s not really about that anymore,” Jay Manning, director of ecology for Washington state, tells FRONTLINE. “It’s about the way we all live. And unfortunately, we are all polluters. I am; you are; all of us are.”

See the trailer here.

Just days after the Sonoma County Water Agency announced that a 15% voluntary reduction in water use would be all that is necessary to make it through the summer, they have been told by the State to reduce their draws by 25%. So here we go again. Why? It’s the quid pro quo for keeping more winter water in Lake Mendocino… but that’s a whole other can of worms. Bottom line: Those ridiculous (…in California) lawns around gas stations and business parks are probably a thing of the past at last.

The Sonoma County Water Agency on Tuesday cut releases to the river from a much-diminished Lake Mendocino near Ukiah. The action came hours after it received permission from the state Water Resources Control Board late Monday.

But the same order that allows more water to be stored for use this fall also requires strict cuts in water use. Included is a specific prohibition on businesses irrigating lawns between May 1 and Oct. 2 within the water agency’s service area, which extends from Windsor to Petaluma.

“It certainly is going to impact a lot of landscaping in this county,” said Windsor Town Manager Matt Mullan.

The water agency is seeking clarification on the prohibition on commercial irrigation. Officials want to know whether the rule extends to city parks, golf courses and municipal buildings, as well as to businesses that use well water or recycled water, agency spokesman Brad Sherwood said.

Two years after the draft EIR appeared, the final version of the NSCARP wastewater irrigation study has been published by the Sonoma County Water Agency — and not much has changed.  The study remains seriously flawed, and many of the concerns from drinking water advocates, farmers, rural residents associations and even government agencies have been given short shrift by the report’s authors and consultants.  We find this disturbing.

Wastewater recycling and reuse are useful in a drought only when drinking water supplies are protected.  The three appellations that would be affected by NSCARP–Alexander, Dry Creek, and Russian River Valleys–all exhibit shallow porous soils over gravel with drinking water aquifers directly below.  Contaminants not removed at the sewage plant are not adsorbed under these conditions and they will pass virtually unimpeded into the aquifers, placing at risk an important current and future source of drinking water for the County.

The SCWA Board of Directors will consider approving the report at their meeting in the Sonoma County Supervisors’ Chambers, 8:30 AM, Tuesday, May 12th.  We hope the Board will do the right thing and pay attention to the project’s inadequacies.  CWC is urging the Board not to certify the study in its current form.  Here’s how the Healdsburg Tribune reported the EIR’s return.

At the California Conference of the Water Reuse Association in March 2009 in San Francisco, a new overview of the state of the practice of using wastewater to irrigate vineyards was presented, reporting that “the development of saline conditions in soils over the long-term due to irrigation is a significant issue for sustainable use of recycled water.”  The report also concluded that “the long term application of sodium-rich recycled water may threaten the structural integrity of the soils and the viability of irrigated vineyards.”

Studies have shown use of recycled water for irrigation of vineyards in the Great Western Region of Australia has resulted in increases in salinity and sodicity.  One such study compared soil properties in vineyards which had been irrigated for varying periods of time with recycled water with soil properties in samples from nearby unirrigated pasture land with comparable soil types.

The data indicated a general trend of increasing electrical conductivity (EC) or salinity in samples of topsoil taken from irrigated vineyard areas in comparison with the samples from pasture land, and in some areas the subsoil also showed an increase in salinity.  Similar studies involving the McLaren Vale and Barossa Valley areas of South Australia have shown increased levels of potassium in vineyards irrigated with recycled water.

Marin officials are moving into the drinking water production business with a desalination project.  North Marin takes water from the SCWA, but many communities to the south of us, including Petaluma with groundwater pumping plans, are seeking more independence from the H2O in the Russian River.

A desalination plant would supply the county with a drought proof source of water, according to a district report.

The desalination plant being proposed would be built in phases. The first phase would be construction of a 5-million-gallon-per-day facility, with the ability to expand to 15 million gallons per day.

The desalination plant would take San Rafael Bay water and subject it to various forms of treatment to produce drinkable water through reverse osmosis technology.

The plant would be situated on MMWD-owned land near Pelican Way in San Rafael. Bay water would be piped from an intake near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

As a follow-up after their landmark national study of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, the AP reported on a new study of where those pharmaceuticals are ending up – in the fish! I think most of us could have guessed that without the $150,000 EPA grant…

This is going to be a bigger and bigger concern as measurement methods for detecting contaminants remaining in wastewater become more sophisticated.

Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday.

Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly expand similar ongoing research to more than 150 different locations.

Earlier research has confirmed that fish absorb medicines because the rivers they live in are contaminated with traces of drugs that are not removed in sewage treatment plants. Much of the contamination comes from the unmetabolized residues of pharmaceuticals that people have taken and excreted; unused medications dumped down the drain also contribute to the problem.

The researchers, whose work was funded by a $150,000 EPA grant, tested fish for 24 different pharmaceuticals, as well as 12 chemicals found in personal care products.

They found trace concentrations of seven drugs and two soap scent chemicals in fish at all five of the urban river sites. The amounts varied, but some of the fish had combinations of many of the compounds in their livers.

Interesting story about well contamination … and Nitrate was at top of the list for man-introduced pollutants.  Full story from USGS here

USGS scientists sampled about 2,100 private wells in 48 states and found that the contaminants most frequently measured at concentrations of potential health concern were inorganic contaminants, including radon and arsenic. These contaminants are mostly derived from the natural geologic materials that make up the aquifers from which well water is drawn.

Nitrate was the most common inorganic contaminant derived from man- made sources-such as from fertilizer applications and septic-tanks-that was found at concentrations greater than the Federal drinking-water standard for public-water supplies (10 parts per million). Nitrate was greater than the standard in about 4 percent of sampled wells.