Volume 3   Issue  36                        November   2004

Where Will All Of The Water Go?

Los Angeles Daily News By Charles Bostwick

November 16, 2004

The population served by the plant is projected to go from about 100,000 to 150,000 in 10 years, and officials want to build a system that allows the treated water to be put to beneficial uses such as watering golf courses or replenishing the underground water supply.
"We do have enough capacity at the plant to take us through 2014; after 2014, that will be exceeded," said Paul James, the project engineer for Los Angeles County Sanitation District 20, which runs the plant.

A community workshop is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Palmdale Moose Lodge, 3101 E. Ave. Q., at which the public can offer ideas, suggestions and concerns about future sewage treatment plans. The proposed facilities plan and draft environmental impact report that sanitation officials are working on are expected to be released for public review in spring 2005.

Approval under a state-imposed deadline is scheduled for September 2005. Construction would start in 2007 and be finished in late 2009.
Even before finishing the plan, sanitation officials are installing a new disinfection system and irrigating hundreds of acres of alfalfa as a way to use the treated water that for decades was mostly pumped onto barren land to evaporate or soak into the ground.

The problem with pumping water onto the ground was that it carried high levels of nitrates into the underground water table. The alfalfa will use the nitrogen in the water as fertilizer, so it doesn't seep into well water. Nitrates can cause a condition known as "blue baby" syndrome among infants, though the nearest drinking water well is more than two miles from the contamination and hasn't been affected.
Sanitation officials are under orders from a state water quality board to reduce the nitrogen in the treated water coming out of the plant, and to remove nitrates already in the underground water.

Officials expect to pump water out of wells where the highest nitrate concentrations exist -- under farmland just east of Air Force Plant 42 -- and use it to irrigate alfalfa. Sanitation board members this summer approved a three-year schedule of rate increases that will take the annual charge for a home from $71 to $160 by July 2006. That is expected to pay for cleaning up the nitrogen contamination and some upgrades to the treatment process.

But how much the plant expansion will cost isn't known -- though one estimate is that it will top $100 million -- and won't be known until officials decide on what technologies and facilities will be added.

Fees imposed on new homes before they connect to the local sewer system are expected to be raised to pay for the expansion, though again the possible amount isn't known. "We want (the cost) to be borne by the people that are coming in," said Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford, a member of Sanitation District 20's three-person board. As sanitation officials begin making their plans, they are touring about two dozen community leaders through the sewage plant and delivering presentations to civic groups and water agencies to explain their situation.

Antelope Valley attorney Ross Amspoker, who with his wife, Beryl, toured the plant last week, said their explanations of treatment processes would have been better suited to an engineer. "Much of it was over my head," Amspoker said. "I appreciate what they are trying to do, and I know they have to do it."

Right now, the plant takes sewage from Palmdale homes as far west as 20th Street West. Sewage from west of 20th Street West goes to the Lancaster treatment plant. At the plant on 30th Street East south of Air Force Plant 42, the sewage goes through a screen to remove whatever objects get flushed down toilets, then goes through a grinder, then into settling tanks, where the solids sink down to the bottom.

The water flows out to oxidation ponds, where giant propellers stir it to increase the oxygen and stimulate bacteria that feed on the organic matter. As the water flows off to the ponds, the solids go to an enclosed digester, mostly underground, where other types of microorganisms break it down. This produces water, carbon dioxide and methane. The methane is being used to power a newly installed fuel cell that will supply about one-third of the plant's electricity. The 250-kilowatt fuel cell will be fully operational in January. At one time, the methane was merely burned.

The final outflow of treated water is about 8.2 million gallons a day, compared with 9.2 million gallons of sewage coming in.
Sanitation officials are struggling to find a use for the water, which, if it is clean, could be enough to supply more than 9,000 Antelope Valley homes. While Los Angeles County's other sewage treatment plants let their treated effluent flow into the ocean, or into rivers that empty into the ocean, the Antelope Valley has no natural outlet.

Even irrigating alfalfa is not a total solution, because during the winter crops don't need all the water produced by the plant. Improving the treatment to remove more of the contaminants such as nitrates and kill microorganisms would let the water be used to irrigate parks or landscaping. By blending it with California Aqueduct water, the better treated effluent can be allowed to seep into the underground water table.
"We really need to investigate reuse possibilities," James said. "We have to look seriously into water reuse opportunities."

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