[SCV Sanitation District] – The the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District is still working to implement a project to comply with a State-mandated limit on the level of chloride in the treated wastewater discharged by the District’s two water reclamation plants.

A public notice regarding the environmental review for a revised brine management approach will be issued Sept. 18.  The revised brine management approach will replace deep well injection with the addition of brine concentration equipment at the Valencia Water Reclamation Plant and limited trucking of concentrated brine (an average of 6 truckloads per day, 10 maximum, during off-peak hours) to an existing industrial facility.

The new, focused environmental review will evaluate the environmental impacts of the revised brine management approach only.  Ample opportunities will be provided for public input as in the past, with the public review beginning in September.  The Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report is scheduled for release by January 2016.  The first round of public information/scoping meetings are scheduled as follows:

– October 1, 2015, at 1:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Santa Clarita Activities Center, located at 20880 Centre Pointe Parkway, Santa Clarita, CA  91350

– October 6, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. at Stevenson Ranch Elementary School, located at 25820 Carroll Lane, Stevenson Ranch, CA 91381

Background

The Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District is the public agency responsible for treating the SCV’s wastewater (sewage). The SCVSD operates two treatment plants, the Saugus Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) and Valencia WRP, which discharge highly treated water to the Santa Clara River. The treated water must comply with a number of state and federal requirements including a strict limit on the level of chloride (salt) that was set in 2002. The SCVSD spent more than ten years attempting to achieve the most reasonable chloride limit possible and develop the most cost-effective and environmentally- responsible solution.

In October 2013, the SCVSD Board of Directors approved a project to comply with the State-mandated chloride limit after nearly two years of extensive public input, meetings, hearings, and environmental review. The approved chloride compliance project will add advanced treatment equipment to the Valencia WRP to reduce chloride levels in the SCV’s treated wastewater. Part of the advanced treatment equipment is reverse osmosis, which works by using pressure to push water through a membrane with microscopic openings. The water that has passed through the reverse osmosis membrane becomes ultra- clean water and the remaining salty water becomes a byproduct called brine that requires proper disposal.

The approved chloride compliance project previously included brine disposal by deep well injection. Based on public input regarding deep well injection, the SCVSD Board withdrew the deep well injection proposal and directed staff to investigate additional brine management alternatives. These alternatives include newer technologies such as brine concentration that reduce the volume of brine requiring disposal and can be located at the Valencia WRP.

After further investigation, the SCVSD proposes to modify the chloride compliance project by replacing deep well injection with the addition of brine concentration equipment at the Valencia WRP and limited trucking of concentrated brine (an average of 6 truckloads per day (10 maximum) during off-peak hours) to an existing industrial facility. The SCVSD intends for all trucking to occur outside of morning and evening peak traffic (“rush hour”). The currently proposed industrial facility is the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Carson, which treats wastewater from much of the Los Angeles Basin (over 270 million gallons per day) and discharges to the ocean. This plant can easily accommodate the small proposed Santa Clarita brine flow.

The proposed modifications to the chloride compliance project require additional focused technical and environmental study. A Supplemental EIR process is beginning in September 2015 to analyze the environmental impacts of the proposed brine concentration equipment at the Valencia WRP and the limited trucking operation. This process will include ample opportunity for public comment, including information meetings and hearings.

The construction cost of the modified compliance project is similar to the originally approved project; however, the modified project would have higher annual operating costs. As such, the customer service charge rates approved through June of 2020 are expected to be sufficient to construct and start the modified compliance project.

The State has set a strict compliance deadline of July 2019 for the chloride compliance project to be fully operational. The environmental review of brine concentration and limited trucking must be completed to meet the State deadline or risk steep State fines that SCV property owners would have to pay.