Copy

BACWA Bulletin - September 2015

Table of Contents

Meetings

  • Recycled Water Comm. 9/2
  • Permit Comm., 9/8
  • AIR Committee, 9/9
  • Pretreatment Comm., 9/10
  • Collections Systems Comm., 9/10
  • Lab Comm., 9/16
  • Executive Board Mtg., 9/25
  • Visit the Calendar for details.

Save the date for BACWA's 2016 Annual Members Meeting

BACWA's Annual Members Meeting will be held on January 15, 2016, at the Boy Scouts Council Facility in San Leandro. Stay tuned for the agenda, which will be posted prior to the event.

Consultant team presents preliminary findings for the Nutrient Optimization and Upgrade studies

The consultant team conducting the Nutrient Optimization and Upgrade Studies required by the Nutrient Watershed Permit presented draft preliminary findings at the August 17 BACWA Executive Board meeting.  They described the results of their site visits and discussed the most common drivers for selecting optimization and upgrade alternatives to recommend for individual facilities.  A draft report is expected in Winter 2016.  The next presentation on the Optimization and Upgrade Studies will be at BACWA's Annual Member Meeting in January.

BACWA to submit group Annual Report for first year of Nutrient Watershed Permit

The Nutrient Watershed Permit requires that permittees submit an Annual Report by September 1 each year, or they may participate in the Group Report, which is due by October 1.  All agencies covered by the Watershed Permit have opted into the Group Report, which is being developed by the consultant team through the Nutrient Optimization and Upgrade Studies contract.  Due to unforeseen difficulties obtaining the nutrient monitoring data from CIWQS, BACWA has obtained an extension to November 12 for submitting the full Group Annual Report. BACWA will submit to the Regional Water Board a list of all the agencies that are participating in this effort by October 1.

Nominate a colleague for BACWA's Arleen Navarret Award

This award of $1,000 was created in honor of Arleen Navarret and her dedication to improving the health of the San Francisco Bay. Arleen spent nearly 30 years with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and provided leadership to BACWA and Tri-TAC boards and committees. Her combination of technical and regulatory expertise and interpersonal skills has been invaluable to BACWA. Her development of effective relationships with regulators and community-based non-profits has resulted in the development of more thoughtful and effective water quality regulations. This is a biennial award honoring emerging leaders in the BACWA community exhibiting characteristics possessed by former BACWA Chair, Arleen Navarret. Applications are due by November 3, 2015 and should be sumitted by e-mail as an attachment to shull@bacwa.org.

BACWA submits comments for the 2015 Triennial Review

The Regional Water Board is in the process of conducting the 2015 Triennial Review of the San Francisco Bay Basin Plan.  They kicked off the process by holding a public workshop on August 4, and issued a Brief Description of Issues they are considering for the Triennial Review Workplan. BACWA submitted a letter commenting on the prioritization of issues in the Triennial Review and proposing two new projects, which are a change in how chlorine residual is regulated, as well as a new policy for permitting reverse osmosis concentrate discharge from recycled water projects.  A draft Triennial Review Workplan is expected in Fall 2015.

North Bay Selenium TMDL and Proposed Basin Plan Amendment available for public comment

The Regional Water Board has issued a draft Selenium TMDL, including a proposed Basin Plan Amendment, for the North San Francisco Bay. In the draft TMDL, POTWs are given waste load allocations that are equal to their current loads. POTWs are not given selenium effluent limits. During permit reissuance, POTWs will  be required to calculate their annual loads and ensure they have not exceeded their wasteload allocation. Comments on the draft TMDL are due September 8. BACWA will provide a comment letter recommending a small change in language recognizing the variability in selenium data used to calculate wasteload allocations.

What's new in BACWA's Committees

Permits Committee

The consultant team working on the Nutrient Annual Group Report will attend the September 8 Permits meeting.  They will discuss nutrient data gaps in the set downloaded from CIQWS, as well as the format for presenting agency data and data trends in the Annual Group Report.
 

BAPPG

AB 888 is a bill to ban the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products. Microbeads are plastic particles usually smaller than two millimeters that pass through most wastewater treatment plants and accumulate in the aquatic environment.  BAPPG has submitted letters to each Bay Area State Senator in support of the Bill.
 

Collections Systems

The next collection systems committee meeting will feature a presentation by Lani Good from West Yost Associates that outlines the current drought conditions, drought impacts on water and wastewater systems and potential solutions. On the other extreme, there will also be a round-table discussion on how Cities and Agencies are preparing for the El Niño weather event that is forecasted this winter.
 

Pretreatment Committee

The Pretreatment Committee plans to host two sampling training sessions in October. Attendees learn how to build an effective program with supporting records to produce legally defensible data. The two dates for the Sampling Training sessions being sponsored by the Pretreatment Committee are:
  • Tuesday 10/13/15 8:30-11 AM at CentralSan’s Multi-Purpose Room, 5019 Imhoff Place, Martinez
  • Thursday 10/22/15 8:30-11 AM at San Jose Environmental Innovation Center, 1608 Las Plumas Avenue, San Jose

Operations and Maintenance Infoshare

The Operations and Maintenance Infoshare Group will be restarting this Fall as a regular BACWA committee. Meetings will be held quarterly, and will alternate between operations-focused and maintenance-focused formats. The kickoff meeting will feature a joint operations and maintenance format, and will include a discussion of topics for future meetings. It will be held on October 28, 10am to 1pm, at the EBMUD wastewater treatment plant Operations Control Center Training Room, and lunch will be provided. Please pass this information along to your operations and maintenance supervisors.  Attendees should RSVP to Lorien Fono.

 

Upcoming Events

State of the Estuary Meeting
September 17–18, 2015
Oakland Marriott City Center, Oakland, CA

NWRI Direct Potable Reuse in California Specialty Seminar
September 23, 2015
David Brower Center, Berkeley, CA

ABAG Sewer Summit 2015, "Manageable Surprises"
October 15, 2015
Crowne Plaza- 32083 Alvarado - Niles Road, Union City, CA

BACWA Annual Members Meeting
January 15, 2016
Boy Scout Council, San Leandro, CA

 

BACWA External Representation

Collaboration with outside groups and initiatives is an important facet of BACWA's mission. Below is a list of BACWA's representatives to these  technical, regulatory, and management groups:
Copyright © 2015 BACWA Bay Area Clean Water Agencies, All rights reserved.


unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp