SAVE DONNER SUMMIT

DSPUD Operations

• Year 2009
  1. April 28: Opinion: Potential Rate Increase due to new waste water permit. A letter by a local home owner to the SLCWD and DSPUD Boards.
  2. April 10: Buff Sheet and Staff Response to Comments are now available, ahead of Central Valley Water Board meeting about DSPUD new permit, April 24, 8:30am.
  3. DSPUD permit comments are now posted on the Regional Water Quality Control Board in advance of the upcoming April 23/24 public meeting. A lot of people from a wide cross section, all of whom care about the South Yuba River, went to a lot of time and trouble to research, and submit comments. The submissions from the Sportfishing Alliance, SYRCL's, the wastewater engineer, and Joseph & Kathryn Gray, present a good overview of issues and are quite informative.
  4. DSPUD publishes lab analysis and results on their web site.
  5. February 13: DSPUD publishes comments received and responses sent on their operations (pdf).
  6. February 11: DSPUD responds (pdf) to Sept. 30, 2008 SYRCL Report (pdf).
  7. February 3: The Regional Water Quality Control Board issues a- a tentative order requiring DSPUD to cease and desist from discharging contrary to requirements (pdf); b- a tentative new (NPDES) permit (pdf); c- a tentative NPDES permit addressing dilution (pdf); and d- an annoucement for an April23/24 public, with March 6 as the latest date for written public comments (pdf).
  8. January 28: KVMR Evening Newscast Wednesday, Jan. 28th, 2009 (iTunes Radio). - A Discussion about Sewage Treatment and how it Affects Water Quality. A few weeks ago, the Donner Summitt Public Utility District was fined nearly 50 thousand dollars for not meeting water quality standards for the discharge from their sewage treatment plant into the South Fork of the Yuba River. The fine highlights the difficulty of meeting ever tightening water quality standards on treatment facilities and the associated costs for municipalities. Brian Bahouth takes listener calls for a conversation with Tom Skjelstad, Donner Summit PUD General Manager and sewage treatment consultant Dr. Bob Emerick.
  9. January 17: KVMR Evening Newscast, Monday, Jan. 12th, 2009 (iTunes audio) - Donner Summit Public Utility District Fined $49,000.00: After repeated warnings, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has fined the Donner Summit Public Utility District $49,000.00 for violation of water quality standards in the Yuba River. Paul Emery spoke with Control Board spokesperson Bill Ruckheiser and began by asking if this is a severe fine. Quote from the Regional Control Board Control Board spokesperson Bill Ruckheiser:
     "Every sewage treatment plant has its own particular situation, everyone has limitations that they have to meet to keep the rest of us safe and keep California's water clean. There are similar sewage treatment plants up in the mountains, at similar elevations, with similar cold temperatures, and they meet their requirements ... In other counties there have been situations where the operator sewage treatment plant has not been able to get it together, and the county is taking over."
  10. Januray 15: Save Donner Summit: (Re)-Clarification about ECO:LOGIC's role (the highly respected Engineering and Consulting firm). Tom Skjelstad, DSPUD General Manager: "The District is required to have on staff a WWTP Operator with a minimum Grade 3. (There are 5 grades.) We lost our grade 3 due to an unexpected death. So we contracted with ECO:LOGIC for operator services. ECO:LOGIC provided us with Jim King who is a Grade 5. This was by way of a service agreement between the District and ECO:LOGIC. This was the arrangement when the District filed its Report of Waste Discharge on March 30, 2007. In July of 2007, Jim King left ECO:LOGIC and became an employee of DSPUD. So long story short, ECO:LOGIC was the facility operator when we filed our ROWD but is now our consulting engineer."
  11. January 13:Email thread between Joe Gray, a Summit home owner, Tom Skjelstad, DSPUD General Manager, and Jim King, Chief Plant Operator, about DSPUD plant operations (pdf).
  12. January 12: DSPUD General Manager letter to SLCWD Board in response to Joe Gray's criticisms of DSPUD operations. (pdf).
  13. January 10: Donner Summit and the South Yuba River - Stewardship or Sewership? YubaNet Regional Op-Ed.
  14. January 10: DSPUD Permit Application ( pdf) filed with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board on March 2007.
  15. January 8: SierraSun - $49,000 fine for Donner Summit utility discharge - Fines handed out after high levels of nitrates, ammonia found in South Yuba River By Greyson Howard.
  16. January 8: ECO:LOGIC letter to DSPUD general manager clarifying delution credits (pdf)
  17. January 7: DSPUD's response to the Regional Control Board on the Notice of Violation ( pdf).
  18. Januray 6: YubaNet - Donner Summit PUD Fined Again For Polluting the South Yuba River - Regional Control Water Board Order to Include Discretionary Penalty.

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• Year 2008
  1. December 30: A summit home owner letter to SLCWD about DSPUD operations (pdf).
  2. December 29: Comment on Administrative Civil Liability Complaint - R5-2008-0626. ( pdf).
  3. December 21: Opinion: Where is the outrage over wastewater in the Yuba? by John Leonard, Grass Valley.
  4. December 03: Email thread between Joe Gray, Tom Skjelstad, DSPUD General Manager, and Jim King about DSPUD plant operations (pdf).
  5. November 28: The Regional Water Control Board regulating the summit's waste water treatment plant imposes a mandatory minimum fine in the amount of $49,000 as a result of 7 serious violations of effluent discharge limitations in 2007 and 2008. The maximum penalty set by code for these violations is $316,780,000. A public hearing is scheduled for 5/6 February 2009 unless the summit's utility (DSPUD) either pays the fine or proposes compliance projects by December 30, 2008.
  6. November 13: Boil order lifted on DSPUD customers.
  7. October 31: DSPUD customers under boil water order.
  8. October 7: Save Serene Lakes: As part of their "Project Yuba Headwaters", the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) sent a letter to the regional water quality control board with their comments concerning the algae growth "notice of violation" that DSPUD received last July. Their comments document a long list of violations and ask that any new permit or plant expansion permit take them into consideration.
     "In contrast to DSPUD's Report of Waste Discharge, Mr. Reedy's (SYRCL's River Science Director) analysis of dilution potential indicates that DSPUD is willing to discharge to the South Yuba River in volumes and at times that would yield a river composed of almost one-half effluent."
  9. September 23: Save Donner Summit - An upbeat Donner Summit Public Utility District (DSPUD) board of directors passed Resolution 2008-10 authorizing the general manager to request activation of DSPUD's latent park and public facilities powers. A large audience representing many diverse members of the Placer and Nevada County summit community as well as Royal Gorge LLC. and Sugar Bowl testified in support of the resolution, which is the first step to claim available Placer County capital funds. Once secured, the board intends to empower a commission made of community members to make recommendations on park and public facilities projects. Members of the audience suggested a cross country ski trail, an indoor facility for young children activities, creation of new trails, ...
  10. September 9: Donner Summit Public Utilities District (DSPUD) - In response to the Notice of Violation issued on August 5 by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the district, through its consultant, states that it cannot consistently meet the letter of its current permit (as per Control Board order R5-2002-0088) with regard to effluent nitrate concentration as measured at the exit of its waste water treatment plant, but points out that public health is not threatened because the concentration of nitrate drops by a factor of 24 through dilution in the South Yuba river. "Current attempts at complying with the limitations contained in Order R5-2002-0088 require feeding the biological treatment process a synthetic wastewater so that an adequate biology is available when a significant amount of real wastewater requires treatment during holiday weekends. Very low wastewater temperatures also contribute to inhibiting the biological treatment process from performing in a robust manner". Download the full technical report in response to the Notice of Violation
  11. August 15. The California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a notice of violation to the Donner Summit Public Utilities District: "Based on the field observations, it is a reasonable conclusion that the DSPUD effluent discharge was at least a major contributing factor to a reportedly rare, highly unusual, transient growth of filamentous green algae in the South Yuba River in June 2008 in the reach from the DSPUD effluent discharge point, downstream through the Towle Mountain Estates area, but not as far downstream as Kingvale. The filamentous biofilm tracks fairly well to the effluent discharge point,". Download the full text of The Notice.
  12. August 13. DSPUD Tom Skjelstad: "We are taking this (excess algal growth) very seriously" - Sierra Sun. Algae sparks concern on Donner Summit - PUD wastewater slimes Yuba River.
  13. August 10. Excess algal growth and eutrophication found downstream of DSPUD's outfall into the South Yuba River is being investigated - Donner Summit Clarion August 2008.
  14. April 4. Grand jury report on DSPUD.
  15. January 25. Save Donner Summit - Royal Gorge Sewage or "Squaring the Circle" by Bernard Pech.

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• Year 2007
  1. November 21, 2007: Royal Gorge LLC. - Waste Water Treatement ( pdf). Preliminary document obtained through threat of legal action (the document was filed with Placer County with no public access). Appendix (pdf).
  2. November 15: California Regional Water Quality Control Board Central Valley Region - Adminstrative Civil Liability Order No. R5-2007-0528.
  3. April 2, 2007: California Regional Water Quality Control Board Central Valley Region - Adminstrative Civil Liability Order No. R5-2007-0509.