Glendale Civic Auditorium
1401 N Verdugo Rd., Glendale
Enter lot from Mountain Street.
Free parking! Vacuum trucks welcome.

LA’s meeting for collection systems workers, managers and superintendents – and anyone else who loves to talk wastewater collections! Featuring Jim Fischer SSO Office, SWRCB on SSMP audits and what the State is looking for. Hands-on training includes: truck safety, rodders, cleaning nozzles and more. Compliance case studies, live overflow simulation, SSO responses & SSMPs. Vendor training, great BBQ lunch and lots of great door prizes!

$55 CWEA member/$65 non-member

Click here for event flyer and registration form (event might sell out). Exhibitor booths welcome.

The American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE) has organized a dinner meeting to present two Excellence in Environmental Engineering award-winning projects, to be held at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on September 23, 2010.   Details and registration information are contained in the attached flyer.  This AAEE annual event will showcase two of California’s winning projects from the international competition, including the overall top prize. Dr. Kent Sorenson will discuss CDM’s Technology for InSitu Biodegradation of Perchlorate and Nitrate, the Superior Achievement Award winner and Chairman Tim Brick will speak about MWD’s Inland Feeder Program, the Environmental Sustainability Honor Award winner.  Come and learn from industry leaders about these outstanding projects and AAEE’s initiatives.

Click here to view the flyer for more information! 

If you have additional questions about the event or wish to register, please contact Sylvia Williams at swilliams@lacsd.org or phone 562-908-4288 ext 1700.

Thank you,

Wendy Wert

Board Certified Environmental Engineer (BCEE)

Join LABS and Senior Attorney David Beckman for a discussion of triple bottom line solutions that address regional stormwater from an inclusive perspective. Attendees will be challenged to consider rainfall as a potential local resource in Los Angeles’ arid, urban environment. David will highlight a report on which NRDC and the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara collaborated that may contribute local water supply benefits through specific control of runoff with tie-in’s to green infrastructure.

When: Thursday, September 24, 2010
            11:30 am  – mixer               
            12:00 pm – lunch
            12:30 pm – presentation

Where: World Cafe
              2820 Main Street, 
              Santa Monica, CA

Cost: CWEA Members – $30
           Non-Members – $40

See event flyer for more details

On August 19, the LABS Young Professionals Committee hosted a tour of the San Jose Creek Water Reclamation Plant (SJC-WRP), owned and operated by the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County.

[View with PicLens]

P&ID 101 – An engineering bootcamp to help you with reading, designing and understanding process & instrumentation diagrams.

Wednesday, Sept. 29th
11:00am – 3:00pm

Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County
Conference Rooms E & F
1955 Workman Mill Road, Whittier

Please check in with Security in the main lobby.

 $50 CWEA members, $60 non, $25 students/retired. 3 CWEA contact hours. Pay at the door cash or checks, sorry NO credit cards or purchase orders.

Register: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/79Z6VY9

Training Summary
Pick-up the critical skills necessary to understand P&ID documents in our increasingly high-tech and automated industry. Participants will acquire skills needed to differentiate between the interconnection of process equipment and the instrumentation used to control the process. Modules in the seminar are designed to allow participants to learn how to read and interpret the standard set of symbols used in processes instrumentation drawings and their applications in process system design.

Instructor: Joe Chapman
Joe Chapman of Los Angeles Trade Tech frequently teaches on P&ID topics.

Audience:
Environmental engineers, technicians, operators, mechanics, environmental compliance inspectors and vendors.

See flyer for more information!

LABS has posted a new set of videos on CWEA’s YouTube site. The hour-long six-part series is a recording of its April dinner meeting, which featured Sam Espinoza from the LA Sanitation Districts of LA County speaking about wastewater collection system operation and maintenance.

Comment on this post and let us know what you think. Does your workplace allow access to YouTube? Are the videos useful for information sharing? Want to provide footage of your events or tours of your facility?

See related article

At least three brand-new, state-of-the-art water treatment plants, recycling plants and one pump house have been built or are in the planning stage along the river between the Santa Clarita Valley and the Pacific Ocean.

High energy-efficient plants in Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru all started purifying water along the Santa Clara River within the last couple of months.

What motivated each tiny town to spend millions of dollars on infrastructure when each community, like the rest of America, struggles to rebound from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?

Aside from Piru, each town was hit with a fine — many in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — by the California Water Resources Control Board.

Since the board’s Office of Enforcement was created in June 2006, each of those towns along the Santa Clara River has been hit with hefty fines for water quality violations.

So with a lineup of ultra-efficient water treatment plants positioned from Fillmore to the ocean, does the Santa Clarita Valley need to build a $210 million salt-ridding reverse-osmosis plant to satisfy Ventura County farmers downstream?

The Signal took a road trip to find out.

Ventura County Line
Leaving Santa Clarita Valley heading west on Highway 126, we leave behind us two drinking-water treatment plants operated by the Castaic Lake Water Agency and two wastewater treatment plants run by the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District, all serving residents of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Valley residents wastewater is treated at one of the two SCV plants and then dumped into the Santa Clara River.

Downstream farmers say their crops can tolerate no more than 117 millimeters of chloride, a naturally occurring salt. Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board members say the SCV must scrub the chloride out of the river by 2015 — or face hefty fines.

Plans call for a $210 million reverse-osmosis plant — to be underwritten by Santa Clarita Valley homeowners — to remove chloride from the water.

Many local residents question the science behind the chloride conclusion and say the fees imposed to build the plant would tax local residents but destroy the local economy.

As we cross from Los Angeles County to Ventura County — the point at which the chloride level must drop — no water is visible in the river bed, but a rich green carpet of riverside trees and brush shows us where it is.

The first water treatment plant of note is just a stake in the dusty ground for now, on the south side of the highway just before the Ventura County line.

This is the site for a water reclamation plant planned by Newhall Land and Farming to serve the 21,000 residents of its Newhall Ranch development.

Once it’s up and running, the plant will treat an estimated 6.8 million gallons of water every day.

Piru saw no fine
About six miles further down the winding road, still along the river and on the north side of the highway this time, is the brand-new $14.5 million wastewater treatment plant in Piru.

It started treating water in February with a capacity of up to 0.5 million gallons of water a day, replacing a plant built in 1974.

Piru has a population of about 1,200 with an average household income $41,000.

Unlike its river neighbors upstream and down, it was not cited for a single water violation.

Instead of getting a fine, it got an “order” to build a plant and help to build it.

The board issued Piru a Time Schedule Order ordering the construction and start-up of a new wastewater treatment plant be completed by February 28, 2010.

Piru built the plant.
With funding from the Ventura County Public Works Agency and that county’s sanitation department — plus $8.55 million in Economic Stimulus Bill money and a $6 million state loan from the Clean Water State Revolving fund — it now joins Fillmore and Santa Paula in putting cleaner water into the Santa Clara River.

Driving out of Piru through a corridor of orange groves, we travel from a region of no violations to a town fined for 2,800 violations.

Stopping to talk to Fillmore’s top water man, we learn the town is no longer just treading water to stay fine-free.

Fillmore’s canary pond
Goldfish swim to the surface as Bert J. Rapp kneels down beside their pond.

The director of Fillmore’s Department of Public Works is taking a short break from questions about water fines, about the town’s “Cadillac” of new water treatment plants and about a water penalty of almost a quarter of a million dollars.

“This is our canary pond,” he says, teasing the goldfish with his fingers.

He looks up and smiles at his interviewer, proud to explain.

“Just as they used canaries in coal mines to test the air quality, we have these fish here in our treated water to test the quality of it.”

The goldfish are as big as sausages.

“The koi are the larger ones,” he says, pointing to fish the size of oven mitts.

Both types of fish appear healthy — and aside from the teasing, apparently quite happy — swimming and splashing in water cleaned with state-of-the art technology.

“If we were given an order to remove chloride from our water, we wanted to have the right technology in place,” Rapp said, standing up from the pond and looking over his shoulder at the new water-purifying plant.

The water leaving here travels downstream to more Ventura County farms.

Fillmore’s filter
In 2000, strawberries replaced lemons as the No. 1 cash crop in Ventura County.

Five years ago, strawberries’ value as the new top crop totaled $328.6 million.

And strawberries are particularly susceptible to chloride in the water, farmers say.

Between Oct. 28, 2004, and June 30, 2008, chloride levels in water discharged into the Santa Clara River at Fillmore exceeded interim chloride limits granted by the board of 187 milligrams per liter.

The resulting fines were for a variety of chemicals released in effluent, and chloride was one of them.

“If we hadn’t had that limit for the interim — and they did the analysis — we would have had a lot more chloride violations,” Rapp said.

As it turned out, the violations that were cited by the board netted Fillmore a fine of $231,000.

“The regional board has allowed us payment over three years,” Rapp said.

Fillmore built the $69 million water recycling plant last year as part of a an order imposed by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The decision to build came in response to revised, more stringent limitations on wastewater discharge set by the regional board.

If it had failed to comply with any provisions of the order, Fillmore would have likely been hit with fines of at least $3,000 a day for each day of non-compliance.

City officials decided it was better to pay to build the plant — with an estimated annual operating cost of $1.75 million, according to the town’s 2008-2009 audit — than to pay an escalating fine.

The cost is borne by Fillmore residents.

Financing the Fillmore plant
The city issued $57.4 million in revenue bonds to help finance the capital improvement costs, its audit reveals.

Paying off the debt is expected to occur through user fee increases and through new development fees over the life the 40-year bond issue.

On July 1, 2009, city leaders hiked the residential rate sewage user rate from $72 to $80. Now, they want to increase it again to $82.

On Sept. 15, Fillmore ratepayers will get a chance to rally against proposed rate hikes, just as their neighbors in Santa Clarita did last month.

At least 34,000 signatures were needed to kill the proposed rate hikes representing at least half of all Santa Clarita Valley homeowners with sewer hookups.

That magic number in Fillmore is reached with 2,000 signatures.

As it turned out, the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District board voted to delay consideration of the rate hike until spring.

The required 34,000 protest signatures were not collected.

Fillmore sees the fight in simple terms.

“The choice you have is you either pay it or override the state’s ruling,” Rapp said.

“If Santa Clarita sends more salt down the river, it raises our chloride levels and could put us out of compliance. Fillmore ratepayers would, again, be hit.

“So everybody needs to do their part.”
Continuing our cruise downstream along the Santa Clara River, The Signal found still more towns doing their part.

Santa Paula
In 2007, within a year of the state water board’s Office of Enforcement creation, Santa Paula faced a water board fine of $8 million.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board — the same one that rules on Santa Clarita Valley issues — fined Santa Paula after it found the town’s water treatment plant was discharging polluted water.

Between Jan. 1, 2000, and March 31, 2007, Santa Paula racked up more than 2,800 violations.

With a population of about 28,000 and a median household income of $41,000, the looming fines threatened to be disastrous.

An agreement was reached in May 2007 reducing Santa Paula’s fines as long as the town built a new water-recycling plant.

Santa Paula still has to shell out $350,000 to pay the reduced fine.

However, it didn’t have to pay a single penny for any of the new plant’s up-front capital costs.

In May 2008, a company called Santa Paula Water LLC received a state contract to build the town’s new plant.

In May 2010 the plant began treating water seven months ahead of schedule.

It became the first treatment plant to be built under California’s Government Code 5956 promoting private investment directed at improving the infrastructure of aging towns and cities.

The city’s original plant blamed for releasing polluted water had been built in 1939.

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman was there for the official opening of the new plant last May.

Leaving Santa Paula, we find the mouth of the Santa Clara River.

Not seen from the river or the highway that follows it are tiny but important tributaries, none of them overlooked by the water board’s Office of Enforcement.

Ojai Changes
Tucked among valleys north of Santa Paula is the sleepy still-hippy-ish enclave of Ojai. The town is still using its original treatment plant but looking to change.

The Ojai Valley Sanitation District notified its ratepayers last month that a new $4.5 million pumping station is “essential to protect the environment by reducing the risk of preventable sewage spills in future years.”

Such spills became an urgent concern for Ojai planners in 2008 when the regional water board fined the town $24,000 for eight “effluent violations.”

The new pump house and the three new water treatment plants in Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru bring to seven the total number of water-enhancing plants along the Santa Clara River from the Santa Clarita Valley to Santa Paula.

That’s more than half a dozen new plants hedging against fines and penalties, working to ensure clean water makes its way downstream.

Rooted in the past
Fillmore — founded in 1888, population just under 14,000, median household income is $45,500 — is a farm town fastened to the past.

The sightseeing train that runs outside Rapp’s office at City Hall employs the same rustic track used by Southern Pacific Railroad to expanded Southern California.

When it wasn’t carrying people, the early Southern Pacific line through Fillmore carried oranges.

The town’s farming heritage can be seen everywhere.

Every day that Rapp comes to work, and every day that his City Hall co-workers do the same, and every day that town folk arrive for public meetings — worried about paying a $231,000 fine handed to them by the state water board’s Office of Enforcement — all have to walk across a municipal lobby floor tiled with a mosaic of its most valuable historic commodity — two oranges on a branch.

Even if you appreciate that Fillmore is now a town like any other coping with 21st century demands, you can’t deny that growing oranges remains an economic staple as old as the railway itself.

However, through tribulations brought on by the state water board and its enforcers, the town is transformed with a progressive eye on its future.

At least when it comes to water.

Hard on softeners
Back at his office, Rapp lines up half a dozen mason jars on his desk.

Each has a label: cleaning products, laundry, water supply, human waste, pool filter backwater, brine-discharging water softeners.

All the jars but one have just a sprinkling of white crystals.

But in that one jar, crystals are measured in pounds — not in ounces, like the others.

That one jar is labeled brine-discharging softeners, and it contains 1.2 pounds of chloride.

“This is what water softeners produce in a day,” Rapp said, beaming. “This is chloride.”

Chloride is one of two naturally occurring components of table salt, the other being sodium.

Farmers in Ventura County say excessive amounts of chloride harm their salt-sensitive strawberry and avocado crops.

Some Santa Clarita Valley challengers say the scientific evidence to prove their claim is lacking.

Still, the nine members of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, an arm of the state water board, say the critical threshold of chloride in Santa Clara River water is 117 milligrams per liter — no more.

And, even though the monument tiled into the lobby floor of Fillmore’s City Hall shows oranges, not strawberries or avocados, Fillmore — like Santa Clarita and other Santa Clara River communities upstream from Ventura County farmers — are expected to make the river water virtually salt free.

What’s left for Fillmore to do to rid the river of chloride?

“We have get rid of our water softeners,” Rapp said, eyeing the lineup of jars. “If we can get people to get rid of their brine-based water softeners, then Fillmore will be in compliance during drought conditions.

“That’s why our main push is to get rid of the softeners,” he said.

The city has a program to buy back these brine units, and the passage of Assembly Bill 2270 would make it unlawful to operate a brine-discharging water softener.

Fillmore is following in the footsteps of the Santa Clarita Valley, which through rebates and a bill outlawing salt-based water softeners shaved $70 million off the anticipated cost of removing chloride here, according to sanitation officials.

Reverse-osmosis plant
A $210 million salt-ridding reverse-osmosis plant as planned by the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District — together with the water-reclamation plant on the Ventura County line planned for Newhall Ranch — would bring to nine the number of shiny new plants enhancing, cleaning and purifying water along the Santa Clara River.

That means a new water treatment plant — on average, every four miles along the Santa Clara River from here to Santa Paula.

That’s where city officials just added an avocado to the city’s official seal.

Link to full article

LA Harbor 2004

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 6

Summer Cruise

LA & Long Beach Harbor •  Saturday  Aug. 28 •  4 – 7:30pm

 Join LABS for an incredible cruise through Long Beach & Los Angeles Harbors with your host Past President Hala Titus. The three hour tour takes you to interesting corners of the harbor while we enjoy a BBQ buffet, prizes and cash bar.  Cost: $50 members / $55 non-members (***8/16/10 new reduced rate***).

 Menu: BBQ Buffet: Steak Kabobs, Swordfish Steaks & Chicken; Skewered Vegetables; Vegetables & Dip; Rice; Caesar Salad; Mini Cheese Cakes; Unlimited White Wine, Soft Drinks & Coffee. See Flyer for more information!

RSVP:

RSVP by August 20th!
titush@bv.com
email preferred
or phone Hala Titus
213-312-3330

Location:

Spirit Cruise Lines
Dock 9, Long Beach
Shoreline Village
429 Shoreline Village Dr.
Long Beach CA 90802
$8+/- parking w/validation

A Message from the Executive Director…

I hope everyone had a safe and pleasurable Fourth of July. As I celebrated our nation’s birthday it caused me to reflect on how our country became so great. Without a doubt it has been our leaders that have contributed to the successwe have achieved over the last 200 years. Individuals such as, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, to name a few. Men that had exceptional wisdom and foresight and were not afraid of challenges. And much in the same way with SCAP, it is certain individuals who have helped mold our organization into what it is today. From its inception back in 1992, SCAP has been blessed with outstanding individuals serving as president, beginning with Charles (Chuck) Carry (LACSD), Kamil Azoury, (Goleta Sanitary District), Blake Anderson (OCSD) and Jim Stahl (LACSD). All of these gentlemen are great leaders and well respected within our industry. They all shared a common goal in which the members of our organization could provide assistance to each other without regard to size or locality. And as I have mentioned in the past, none of this would have taken place without the dedicated efforts of my distinguished predecessor and Executive Director Emeritus, Ray Miller, who continues to expound, ”it’s a people world”. And in the case of our SCAP organization, he couldn’t be more correct! SCAP is made up of individuals, who unselfishly give of themselves for the good of the membership. Beginning with our board members and including our committee chairs, co-chairs and members, it is the individuals who make up our SCAP family. With the start of a new fiscal year comes new leadership at the top, as SCAP’s President, Richard Atwater, steps down from his post and hands the reigns over to the newly appointed President, Enrique Zaldivar, of the City of Los Angeles’ Bureau of Sanitation.

Before I tell you all about our new President, I wish to personally thank Rich for his 9 years serving on the SCAP Board, the last 3 of which were as president. Rich’s accomplishments, both at SCAP and in the public and private sectors are far too numerous to recount in detail, however, I thought it important to list some of the following highlights of his illustrious career that has spanned over 35 years. Believe it or not, Rich wasn’t always IEUA’s General Manager/CEO. Having earned a BS degree in Geology and Environmental Science at Stanford University, he went on to receive his Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Southern California, even going so far as to win the prestigious Gordon Whitnall Award for Outstanding Student of his class.

After college, he had a cup of coffee with the CA Coastal Commission, working on the Energy Element of the Coastal Plan and then moved on to the City of Lakewood as a staff planner working on the General Plan update and code enforcement issues. He spent a couple of years working with Parsons Engineering-Science on various water resource projects in California, Nevada and Utah. He even worked for a couple years as Manager of a seven county Council of Governments, that included Las Vegas, developing community infrastructure plans in response to the proposed MX Missile Project planned for the Great Basin. As time went on, however, he began gravitating towards positions that would allow him to influence water policy decisions.

For the next 4 years, he worked for the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation eventually being assigned to the position of Special Assistant to the Commissioner, which brought with it responsibility for managing the Washington D.C office with its 200 plus staff. Much of his time, however, was spent filling in as “Acting Commissioner” overseeing the Bureau’s seven regional offices and 6,700 employees. Deciding that he had braved enough of the cold winters and humid summers, Rich moved back to Southern California, where he became the Manager of the Resources Division of the Metropolitan Water District. His accomplishments included working on the All American Canal legislation effort, negotiating the $300 million East Branch Enlargement Contract and winning MWD Board approval of the Seasonal Storage Service water rates. He also became intimately involved in the SWRCB Bay-Delta water rights hearings while working on a myriad of water and power contracts, including the Hoover, Parker-Davis federal contracts.

For the decade prior to accepting his position at IEUA, Rich found time to serve as General Manager of the West Basin Municipal Water District and Central Basin Municipal Water District, where he was instrumental in growing the two districts’ staff and implementing numerous contracts with the public and private sector, followed by a few years on the private side with the nationally recognized water resources management consulting firm of Brookman-Edmonston, where he was quickly promoted from senior vice president to president. All of this finally led to his appointment as General Manager/CEO of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, where he managed a staff of 325 employees that provided wholesale water and wastewater services with an annual operating budget of nearly $100 million and a capital improvement budget of $500 million. Under Rich’s leadership, IEUA successfully completed numerous water recycling, recharge and storage projects and was awarded state and federal grants totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. One of his proudest achievements was the construction of IEUA’s new administration building, which won the prestigious Governor’s Environmental and Economic Achievement Award for being the first LEED “Platinum” public building in California.

I could go on and on about his accomplishments, but suffice to say, Rich is very much deserving of the honors given to him over the years and I think I speak for everyone as we wish him the best of luck in all of his future endeavors. With all of that said, I now wish to welcome in another outstanding individual who exemplifies the tradition of leadership in office as SCAP President, Enrique Zaldivar, the Director of the Bureau of Sanitation for the City of Los Angeles.

Enrique is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California with a graduate degree and post graduate work in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona. Enrique started his career with the City of Los Angeles in 1985, in the Bureau of Engineering where he worked as a design engineer on wastewater treatment plants and major sewer projects, including projects at the Terminal Island and Los Angeles-Glendale Water Reclamation plants and the $200M North Outfall Relief Sewer (NORS).

In 1990 he was promoted to the Bureau of Sanitation’s City Recycling Program, which at the time was in its formative stage. In time, Enrique and his project team made the City’s curbside recycling program one of the most successful in the nation. In 1997, Enrique was promoted to the operations side of the solid waste business, as Assistant Division Manager of the Collection Division. It was here where his passion grew for resource recovery and world-class service delivery in the solid resources environment by successfully meeting the challenge of serving more than 750,000 customers every week, and by managing close to 2 million annual tons of Solid Resources commodities through recycling, processing, composting, mulching, energy recovery or disposal.

In August of 2002, Enrique was appointed Assistant Director in charge of the Solid Resources Program; a program with an annual value of over $300 million. In this capacity, Enrique oversaw the work of over 1,100 employees in solid resources collection, landfill maintenance, facility construction and design, curbside and citywide recycling, private sector recycling coordination, program development and numerous other activities.

In August of 2006, Enrique was appointed to the position of Executive Officer, whose role was much like that of a Chief Operating Officer, with oversight across the Bureau, including the Clean Water, Watershed Protection and Solid Resources programs.

Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa appointed Enrique as Director of the Bureau of Sanitation in October 2007 and by a unanimous vote, the City Council confirmed his appointment. The Bureau of Sanitation has become one of the largest departments in the City, with nearly 3,000 employees and an annual value exceeding $1 billion.

Enrique is active in several professional and trade organizations; has coached little league baseball and other sports as well. He and his wife Brenda have two sons, Enrique and Alonzo, and a daughter, Carina Gabriella.
One of the greatest perks associated with my job is being able to work with outstanding individuals such as Enrique and I must say, he was one of the brightest and most professional gentleman I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and I am very much looking forward to working with him in the coming years.

Individually Yours,

John Pastore, Executive Director