It is very evident, and understandable, that the public would be fatigued on the water issue. After all, not only did we just have an election that ended less than four weeks ago, we had a long run up to that election, with extensive discussion in the fall of 2011 with regard to the referendum and a year-long discussion of the Water Advisory Committee and their findings.
However, I wish the public would engage for a bit longer and ask some tougher questions on wastewater. It may be that, at the end of asking these tough questions, we end up in the same place, but at least the deal will have been scrutinized.
In addition to the city’s new surface water project that was just approved by the voters, in Measure I, with the funding ratified following the Prop. 218 process, the city needs to have a wastewater treatment plant online by 2017 in order to meet discharge requirements.
The city has already approved a project and the funding is already in place for what is being called the local option.
But the city of Woodland has asked the city to re-evaluate its plan and consider a regional wastewater treatment partnership between the two communities.
On Tuesday night, Rochelle Swanson, Brett Lee and Lucas Frerichs voted 3 to 1, with Mayor Joe Krovoza dissenting, to go with the local option.
Staff evaluated the project and, of the major issues, they only came down on the side of the regional project on one factor – cost.
The city estimated that the regional approach would save $30 million. Woodland, on the other hand, argued that Davis’ estimate is too conservative and they believe that the project will actually yield, conservatively, nearly $50 million in savings.
Staff explains the savings away, suggesting that the savings would be spread over a period of years and that it comes to about a $3 per month, on average, savings to ratepayers. And that is on the conservative side.
Equally stunning, perhaps, are the efforts made by the council to not only explain away $30 to $50 million in savings as though it were nothing, but also to justify the local project.
Councilmember Lucas Frerichs was the most outspoken against the project, both in early March as well as at the most recent meeting.
One of Councilmember Frerichs’ concerns was the issue of governance.
Here we have the council arguing that we need local autonomy, which is an amazing argument since the opponents to the surface water project argued the same thing and those arguments were rejected by proponents of the project.
I understand the concern that Davis would need to be a partner, not a customer, in the project.
But it seemed like Mayor Krovoza had the solution.
“I’m sympathetic to the governance comments of my colleagues,” the mayor said. “If we were to go forward and at least consider regionalization, there would be two things I would absolutely insist on. One would be that we would only look at regionalization in partnership with Woodland. If we buy in, I would expect it to be a partnership not a customer…”
All the council would have done, had they moved toward the regional approach, would be to authorize a study of it. Obviously if Woodland insisted on Davis being a customer, that would have been a non-starter. Woodland would have needed to include Davis as a full partner, and it seems that they would have to be willing to do so to make this work.
By rejecting this option, the council majority of three seemed to be suggesting that the JPA is good enough for surface water but a problem for wastewater. My question is really, why?
The other major argument put forward by Lucas Frerichs concerns the issue of reuse and the wetlands, which are basically similar issues.
The idea is that with the local option, the city would be able to pipe reuse water into the wetlands, but with the regional option, the water would be up in Woodland and would need to be piped back to Davis.
Staff argued that they see better opportunities for urban and industrial water reuse near the Woodland facility. But they add, “The Regional alternative would effectively eliminate the possibility of reuse opportunities within the City of Davis unless a treated effluent pipeline was constructed back to the City limits (about $10M cost).”
Staff added, “It is likely that treated effluent will continue to be used for wetlands operations. Treated effluent for the wetlands from the Regional alternative will only be available if a treated effluent pipeline was constructed back to the Davis site (about $10M cost).”
But they also caution, “It is possible that treated effluent will no longer be allowed to be used for wetlands operations because of regulatory issues. In that case, there is no difference between the alternatives.”
So let us break this down. First of all, we may not be able to use this water for the wetlands because of future regulatory regulations.
Second, we save anywhere from $30 to $50 million but cannot do this project because we would need to create a $10 million pipe.
So if we paid the full cost of the pipe, we still come out $20 to $40 million ahead. But if that is the deal breaker, perhaps we could have attempted to convince Woodland, who would be saving tens of millions of dollars of their own, to split the cost?
We did not even try.
In the end, Lucas Frerichs argued, “It goes back to water reuse issue… there will always be an impediment for reuse in Davis. There will always be a larger impediment if we ever want to do reuse in Davis in terms that we would be needing to build a $10 million pipeline and back in order to facilitate that reuse.”
“There certainly are still issues of the governance,” he said, but that’s just one of many concerns.
But none of these issues appear unresolvable, so why the rush to kill the regional approach, particularly when many of the same arguments of joint governance versus autonomy were sided by this same council, in the other direction, on surface water?
I am not arguing that the council was wrong here, just that their reasoning, at least in part, contradicts the rationale set forth in the surface water JPA project.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]So if we paid the full cost of the pipe, we still come out $20 to $40 million ahead. But if that is the deal breaker, perhaps we could have attempted to convince Woodland, who would be saving tens of millions of dollars of their own, to split the cost?[/quote]
Thank you, that’s exactly what I was thinking when the possible $10 million pipeline cost was used as an impediment to the regional deal because as you say, we’re still coming out way ahead. I guess math isn’t one of our council’s strong suits.
You make some great points here in your article, first the water may never be reusable anyway and why do we now need local governence when the water project proponents had just fought for and won a regional one?
I can’t believe our council would opt for the more expensive option when ratepayers are already going to be hit hard with nuch higher water rates.
David
Like GI, I also want to thank you for sticking with the issue of water both in terms of acquisition and reuse/disposal. I have two main concerns about the local option which you have pointed out.
1) The seeming inconsistency between favoring a collaborative regional approach in therms of acquisition but a local approach with regard to disposal. For me, in terms of the management of natural resources, all other things being equal, the collaborative approach would always be preferable if an equal partnership could be ensured as stipulated by Mayor Keovoza.
2) However, all other things do not appear to be equal. There appears to be substantial savings ( at least 20-40 million ? ) that could be saved
even if the additional 10 million were needed for a “return pipeline”.
I cannot imagine why the three council members made a decision to not even consider further the possibility of collaboration with Woodland if full partnership could be ensured unless there is an issue of time. Only if the 2017 deadline presents a constraint requiring immediate action could I justify not looking into this further.
This would seem to me a good time for a second look at an issue even after a vote. There is precedent for that action with this council, which I have considered a wise move in the past, and would urge again now.
Yes, to repeat earlier posts, ironic that wastewater project is not acceptable to join with Woodland but surface water is…..I don’t see that the case has been made. Silly question, but could Woodland join with US on wastewater and have the plant for both here in Davis?
I agree that reuse of water would be a huge benefit, both in terms of using a scarce resource but also for the ‘feel good’ aspect of reuse.
SODA said . . .
[i]”Silly question, but could Woodland join with US on wastewater and have the plant for both here in Davis? “[/i]
Not a silly question at all SODA. There is nothing physical that would prevent Woodland from joining with us here in Davis. The reasons that that alternative makes no sense are fiscal.
Specifically, the Woodland plant has already been upgraded to meet the RWQCB’s “tertiary level of treatment” requirement. Our plant has not. That is a $90 million up front capital expense. So Woodland coming to Davis would be the same piping costs plus $90 million, while Davis going to Woodland would be the piping costs alone.
I must say that the Wetlands argument perplexes me. A I understand it, the primary water supply for the Wetlands comes from Davis’ stormwater system, not its wastewater system. I believe that wastewater is only a meaningful source during the summer months, and I’m not sure how “dry” the Wetlands are allowed to become during the summer.
Regardless, the would appear to be other alternative to spending $10 million for a return pipeline to have a non-stormwater source during the months when there is no rain. That source could be a shallow or intermediate aquifer well at the cost of several hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than tens of millions of dollars. The well could discharge its Perhaps someone who is familiar with the operations of the Wetlands (hpierce?) can help us better understand the seasonal water flow requirements.
As Brett Lee noted from the dais, regionalization is not the only option that can save Davis a lot of capital and operational costs. The idea that has been put forward by PERC Water to build a whole new treatment plant with tertiary level treatment for a guaranteed price of $70 million is $20 million cheaper than the current upgrade estimate that staff has from Brown and Caldwell. The plant design is not the traditional single level “campus” layout, but rather a multi-story approach. As best as I can tell from my discussions with George Tchobanoglous the plant has the same bells and whistles as the Charette design. Think of a 2,000 square foot ranch house and a 2,000 foot two story house. They seem very different at first glance, but in terms of living space are identical.
As ratepayers, saving $20 million in design and construction costs (an over 22% savings) seems like it is worth looking long and hard at. When Brett Lee called me and asked me to talk to PERC and see what I thought, that bottom-line logic was compelling to me, so I agreed to talk to PERC.
The problem that PERC’s design poses is two-fold. First, it is “different” from the traditional campus approach, and my sense is that staff strongly objects to the fact that PERC has been very persistent in trying to explain that its design does all the things that the Charette design does. Second, PERC has (from my observations) become overly sensitive to the inevitable “but its different” pushback that comes with any “new” approach to a problem that has always been addressed with a “traditional” custom design process. The question that I have and I believe Brett Lee has is [i]”Do we need to spend an extra $20 million” just to have the satisfaction of saying our wastewater plant is “custom made for us” or is a “packaged solution” that doesn’t spend lots of money on reinventing the wheel good enough for us?”[/i]
These aren’t easy questions to answer, but the suggestions by Council (and Staff) that something like the Tchobanoglous Charette be involved in the final decision seem like the right way to go. If there really is $20 million of immediate cost savings and the Charette tells us that the cheaper alternative will achieve all our technical objectives, then we would be foolish to pass that kind of savings over.
JMHO
s
$10 mil here, $20 mil there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.
-Michael Bisch
I’m sure I could look this up, but — would these ‘wetlands’ exist if it weren’t for the waste water? It isn’t an area that was a natural wetland, but was created by the waste treatment water?
Don, from what I have learned from the small amount of research I have done your statement should read . . .
would these ‘wetlands’ exist if it weren’t for the storm water and waste water flows? It isn’t an area that was a natural wetland, but was created by the combined storm water and waste treatment water?
Thx as always Matt for answers to ‘silly question’.
I was out on this beautiful day with my dogs and ran into one of the El Macero oldtimers and rather than talking about dogs we launched into a discussion of water/wastewater. When the discussion evolved from water to wastewater, he smiled and said, [i]”It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!”[/i] and then shared a piece of El Macero wastewater history that I didn’t know. Specifically, most of the raw sewage from South and East Davis flows south and east to the Lift Station on the south edge of El Macero (elevation 36 feet), where it is “forced” uphill using the pumps at the lift station through a pipeline that goes north to the wastewater treatment plant. My understanding is that the elevation rise is on the order of 10 feet. He then went on to tell me about one of the problems that arises in virtually all such lift station situations . . . the sewage undergoes a chemical change and produces hydrogen sulfide gas, which then combines with the h2o in water to produce h2so4 . . . sulfuric acid. As a result, the piping system has to be made from special non-corrosive non-metalic pipe, which has an added cost, but if done correctly shouldn’t be a problem. What is a serious problem though is the effect of the sulfuric acid on the pumps that defy Mother nature’s gravity and move the raw sewage in the pipes uphill. Their impeller blades are not immune to corrosion and as a result have a very short life span. In addition to the increased cost that incurs, it also results in a considerable safety risk should a pump fail unexpectedly, which has happened at the El Macero lift station in the past. When the pumps stop in those situations, Mother Nature and her gravity immediately come into play. The raw sewage in the pipes has nowhere to go other than downhill, with the net result being that all the manholes begin to fill with raw sewage, with the manholes at the lowest elevations filling the fastest. What he told me was that in the time that it took to repair/replace the malfunctioning lift station, the raw sewage rose to within one inch of street level. He said that if the repairs had taken just a little bit longer, we would have had a “Martha and the Vandellas moment.”
For the El Macero oldtimer that story put regionalization into picture that is very much expanded beyond what was talked about on Tuesday night. Specifically, Woodland with an elevation of 69 feet is approximately 33 feet above the low points of Davis. The oldtimer’s argument was that Mother Nature and her gravity would be a very powerful force if the pumps sending all of Davis’ raw sewage uphill to Woodland should succumb to the relentless exposure to sulfuric acid. Further, the amount of sewage in the pipes at the time of a failure would be many, many times more than the amount of sewage that was in the El Macero lift station at the time it experienced its “event.” The oldtimer’s bottom-line was that dealing with pump failure risk would mean 1) significantly increased operational costs that probably haven’t been adequately factored into the cost estimates of regionalization, and 2) we would always be at risk of sewage in the streets no matter how vigilant the operational maintenance is. He closed his comments with the same words he opened them with, [i]”It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!”[/i]
All of the above were factors that I hadn’t considered when thinking about regionalization.
How did our “wetlands” get here without redirected waste water or floodwater? Did they exist as natural, ephermal wetlands or are they constructed wetlands?
Matt: Fascinating story.
Wow, Matt, it’s always the details that matter and what one does not know can really hurt. How lucky you happened to have this conversation. Because it seemed to many of us that the CC was really off on this.Interesting that their reasoning was off (as far as I’m concerned) but with this information the direction looks right. I wonder what else we don’t know. Can this apply to the 2 story plant design or has the acid been neutralized by then?
Donna, truth be told I was on the fence about the Council’s decision myself, but as my first post in this comment thread shows clearly, I was leaning toward it being a wrong decision. Then I went for a walk with the dogs.
Regarding the two-story design, the sulfuric acid will not get created because there is no lift station involved. As I understand it, the local pumping within the treatment complex covers such short distances that the hydrogen sulfide gas that gets created in a pipe that comes out of a lift station will not get created. The way it was described to me, the uphill pipe coming out of a lift station has no “head room” of air above the liquid sewage and it is that lack of air that accelerates the creation of hydrogen sulfide. Then the hydrogen sulfide reacts with h2o to produce the h2so4 (sulfuric acid).
The small amount that I know about fluid dynamics from my ancient roman history courses is that if you leave head room in an uphill pipe then the force that the pumps apply to the fluid stream doesn’t efficiently translate to lateral motion in the pipe, because the liquid can expand vertically into the airspace at the top of the pipe. Maybe a fluid engineer can expand on (or correct) that explanation.