New Order on Wastewater Discharges into Bay Sparks Fierce Debate as Cost and Environmental Concerns Clash

Martinez-based Central San cries foul over cost, timeline and science, but Regional Water Quality Control Board pushes through mandate; also, Martinezian goes for gold at Paris Olympics

Before we get to today’s post from freelance writer Tom Lochner, a quick note for Martinezians tuning into the Olympics in Paris that they can follow the city’s own Jewel Roemer as the U.S. women’s water polo team goes for its fourth consecutive gold medal. With First Lady Jill Biden and rapper Flavor Flay looking on, Roemer, a Stanford star who is from the Alhambra Valley, scored a goal in the United States’ 15-6 opening-round win over Greece on Saturday. Learn more about Roemer by clicking here and follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/jewel.roemer/ Roemer and the U.S. next play Spain at 6:35 a.m. local time Monday; the match can be watched live on USA Network, Peacock and Fubo.

The following post by freelance writer Tom Lochner is made possible through the financial support of paid subscribers and other financial contributors to the newsletter. It is being made available in full to paid subscribers only. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber if not already for $5 a month or $50 per year to support more local journalism in Martinez. You can also email Craig Lazzeretti at craig.lazzeretti@gmail.com if interested in supporting the newsletter with a financial donation.

By Tom Lochner

The recent order by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board mandating steep reductions of harmful discharges into the Bay sparked a backlash over the science behind it, the timeline, and what some critics characterize as a "one-size-fits-all" approach to a complex problem.

The Nutrients Watershed Permit approved July 10 affects 40 wastewater-treatment plants belonging to 35 wastewater agencies, or "dischargers,” including two based in and serving different portions of Martinez. It requires them to collectively reduce dry-season discharges of inorganic nitrogen into the Bay by 40% compared with 2022 levels within 10 years, at a cost of more than $11 billion as estimated by Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (BACWA). The two local affected dischargers are the Central Contra Costa and Mountain View sanitary districts (a.k.a. Central San and MVSD). A list of the dischargers and the treatment plants that fall under the order is at https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sanfranciscobay/board_info/agendas/2024/July/6_to.pdf 

Objections, many of them focused on the cost and the timeline, were raised by sanitary district and other local officials from all over the Bay Area, including Central San, as well as some private citizens, in written comments to the initial publication of the tentative order and orally, in person and remotely, at the almost seven-hour-long (including breaks) July 10 RWQCB meeting, held in Oakland. But other commenters, albeit in the minority, urged approval, many arguing that the problem, which has culminated in algae blooms and fish kills (including of white sturgeon) in recent years, needs to be addressed urgently, however high the cost.

Nitrogen fuels marine algae growth; the algae consume oxygen, both while alive and when they decompose. Fish die when the level of dissolved oxygen in the water sinks below a threshold, set at 4 milligrams per liter (4 mg/L) by the water board and other authorities.

Besides dismay over costs, and complaints that the 10-year compliance period is too short, challenges were based on disagreements about the science used to determine corrective measures, as well as the fairness of imposing identical requirements on all of the dischargers, regardless of how much nitrogen they actually discharge and the concentration of nutrients in their respective corners of the Bay — the "one-size-fits-all" approach that Central San and others denounced. 

Central San estimates that its customers will be on the hook for $665 million, or nearly $5,500 per household. On top of "modest rate increases" it has planned for the coming years "to meet operations, maintenance and capital improvement needs," satisfying the requirements of the new permit "would require an additional 28% increase—or nearly $200 per year for residential customers—phased in over seven years beginning July 1, 2025," Central San says on its website. The district, one of the largest in the Bay Area, serves an area that stretches from Martinez to the north, east to Clayton, south to San Ramon, and west to Orinda.

(MVSD, on the other hand, will be able to meet the 10-year load cap with minimal effort,  according to General Manager Lilia Corona.) 

Central San also argued that there is no assurance based on science that these costly upgrades will have the intended benefit to the Bay and that the 10-year timeline won’t allow enough time for it “to implement thoughtful, multi-benefit solutions, such as regional recycled water projects that would reduce nutrient impacts to the Bay while also increasing precious water supplies."

Other dissenters also said the 10-year timeline is too short, and that in order to comply, many of the agencies would have to forgo more environmentally friendly approaches to the problem such as wetlands treatment and wastewater recycling. Several said the order makes no allowance for "early actors" – dischargers who already have started or recently completed projects.

Others expressed concern that a wave of simultaneous projects across the Bay Area will force the dischargers to compete for contractors, workers and materials and thus cause delays and drive costs even higher.

Another concern was that rate increases will fall heavily on non-affluent people on fixed incomes and negatively affect the cause of affordable housing.

Jim Cervantes of Lafayette, who said he is a retired public finance investment banker and was speaking as an advocate for affordable housing and public infrastructure, warned that meeting the new permit's cost requirements "may have unintended consequences by crowding out other important public goods that serve the Bay Area." He urged "a more cost-effective solution and a longer timeline."

Cervantes, who sits on the Lafayette General Plan Advisory Committee and the board of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation in San Francisco and also was appointed two years ago to the California Housing Finance Agency board by Gov. Gavin Newsom, said he was speaking as a private citizen. He noted that there will be a Bay Area-wide affordable housing bond issue on the November ballot, and that "many more bonds will be placed before the public in the future." 

He also called attention to "possible different conditions in Suisun Bay than other parts of the Bay," noting, "I take the view that one size doesn't necessarily fit all," and recommending "a more nuanced approach."

The bond would raise $20 billion to build or preserve at least 70,000 affordable housing units across the nine Bay Area counties, nearly half reserved for very low-income households, according to a June 26 KQED report at https://www.kqed.org/news/11992046/20-billion-affordable-housing-bond-heads-to-bay-area-voters. The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) estimates the bond would raise property taxes by about $20 per $100,000 of assessed value, according to the report.

Cervantes estimated that in Contra Costa County, a home with an assessed value equal to the county median would pay about $105 a year for the bond, in addition to the $200 a year per household that Central San has estimated wastewater rates would go up. He warned that "the ripple effect of the regional board's current approach has the potential to swamp a number of other important public goods." 

On the other side were some who said the board was aiming too low. Jon Rosenfield, science director of San Francisco Baykeeper, said the 40% reduction goal is "not enough." He also said the water board should crack down harder on petroleum refineries and other industrial polluters.

The board addressed that notion in its Response to Comments, saying "refineries are relatively small sources of nutrients to San Francisco Bay (about 2% combined)," and that therefore, "any nutrient reductions they might make would be unlikely to meaningfully offset costs to wastewater agencies." The board acknowledged that its most recent data, dating to 2011, is more than 10 years old (it is requiring refineries to undertake updated monitoring and report nutrient concentrations and loads).

Another commenter in favor of approval, Zack Medinas, a fishing charter boat captain, said, "It really boggles my mind that the people that are advocating about cost come from some of our most affluent areas — Lafayette, Orinda, Walnut Creek."

"You want to talk to the working class, guess what: that's me," Medinas continued. "And I'm prepared to incur cost increase….if it means protecting our environment." 

Central San outlined some of its scientific arguments against the terms of the permit on a Nutrients page, at https://www.centralsan.org/nutrients. Citing data it attributes to the SF Regional Board published in April, Central San, in a section titled "One Size Fits All is not Science-based," noted that dissolved oxygen concentration currently falls below the 4 mg/L threshold less than 1% of the time in Suisun Bay. In stark contrast, the dissolved oxygen level falls below the 4 mg/L threshold 92% of the time in the Lower Bay and 90% of the time in the South Bay (The Bay is divided into five sections, or subembayments: Lower and South San Francisco Bay; Central Bay; San Pablo Bay; and Suisun Bay, where Central San's Martinez plant discharges end up. The oxygen concentration falls below the threshold less than 1% of the time in both Suisun and San Pablo bays and 2% of the time in the Central Bay, according to a table on the Nutrients page.)

Responding to Central San's point, Richard Looker, senior water resource control engineer with the water board, said: "The loads that are discharged to a particular subembayment like Suisun Bay do not stay forever in the subembayment into which they are discharged. Those nitrogen discharges get transported widely, and they can fuel algae growth far away from the point of discharge."

Looker added that nitrogen from Central San goes on into San Pablo Bay, and that it helped fuel an algal bloom there in 2023.

In a news release on July 10 shortly after the permit approval, the water board, pushing back against some of the criticism, said: "Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach to solving the problem of nutrients in the bay, the permit offers sewage treatment agencies many options to comply, ranging from optimizing existing systems to constructing entirely new treatment processes.

"Nature-based approaches, such as treatment wetlands, can provide multiple environmental and community benefits in addition to nutrient removal. Wastewater recycling can reduce nutrient discharges while augmenting water supplies. The regional water board encourages multi-benefit projects and the use of innovative technologies."

At the end of the July 10 meeting, in an apparent effort to address some of the backlash expressed in the written comments, the water board approved a "Resolution to Identify and Consider Regulatory Mechanisms to Extend Compliance Schedules for Nutrient Effluent Limitations."

The approval of the new Nutrients Watershed Permit comes in the context of changing conditions in the Bay, in particular its diminishing "resilience."

"Since 2012, there were early indications that the Bay’s resilience to nutrients was waning, and in 2014, the board forecasted the need to control nutrients," the board said in a response to written comments. "Some dischargers prepared for these expenses; others did not."

A reality check came in 2022, when a “red tide” harmful algal bloom (HAB) triggered a massive fish kill in the Bay, including many white sturgeon, a species that the California Fish and Game Commission recently added as a candidate for listing under the California Endangered Species Act; a smaller algal bloom occurred in 2023. The water board, in its Responses to Comments, said that in 2022, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimated that 864 dead sturgeon were observed on the Bay shoreline as a consequence of that year's bloom, and in 2023 at least 15 in connection with that year's bloom; those totals likely represent "just a small fraction of total mortality during the blooms because most dead sturgeon probably drifted to the bottom, were swept out of the Bay by tides, or degraded before detection."

A September 2022 news release on the 2022 bloom is at https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/press_room/press_releases/2022/pr090322-aquatic-deaths.pdf

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced this month that it was closing recreational white sturgeon fishing in the state as a result of the fish being considered for endangered species status (look for a fuller article on this topic in a future newsletter post). CDFW’s news release on the announcement and next steps can be found here: https://wildlife.ca.gov/News/Archive/fish-and-game-commission-approves-white-sturgeon-as-a-candidate-species-for-listing-as-threatened