State Fines Moorpark Sewer Plant for Series of Effluent Discharges

Citing a pattern of chronic pollution violations, state water quality authorities have hit operators of the Moorpark sewer plant with a fine for waste water releases that officials say exceed clean-water limits.

For the last 10 years, effluent from the plant often exceeded pollutant limits established to protect Calleguas Creek and ground water sources in the Las Posas Valley, which provide water for domestic use and irrigation, state officials said.

During that period, the Ventura County Wastewater District, which operated the plant, released more than 190 million gallons of partially treated sewage into the environment, investigators said.

The plant, which serves 28,000 Moorpark residents, is too small to comply with state regulatory limits.

Regulators have been working with the district for years to bring the facility into compliance. Plans call for upgrading it to nearly double its current capacity of 3 million gallons per day, but delays forced the hand of investigators for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

In an investigation that culminated this spring, regulators say they documented dozens of instances over the last three years when two streams of effluent--one discharged to settling ponds and the other to Arroyo Las Posas--exceeded waste discharge limits.

Between November 1997 and March 1999, 112 million gallons of effluent discharged from the plant to Arroyo Las Posas exceeded limits for sulfate and turbidity, a measurement of microscopic grit in waste water. Turbid waste water contains lots of particles on which health-threatening bacteria and viruses can cling. Those discharges have since ceased.

Between April 1997 and March 2000, about 80 million gallons of waste water containing excessive quantities of “suspended solids” were discharged into 31 settling ponds for a total of 40 days. The ponds, which leak into the soil and have the potential to spread pathogens in the water table, are still in use.

Despite those releases, officials emphasize that water wells have not been contaminated and people have not consumed tainted water.

“It looks like it has had a very minimal impact on environment or health,” said Mark Pumford, chief of the Ventura Coastal Watershed unit for the regional board. “We put on the limits to protect the beneficial uses to potential drinking water, so even though we didn’t see an impact in this instance, there is a potential. We were happy to stop the problems before they continued.”

Because the danger to the environment appears minimal, state water quality officials on May 11 imposed a reduced fine of $105,313--substantially less than the $1.1-million penalty that plant operators potentially faced under the Clean Water Act.

About 75% of the fine will be used for ongoing studies of pollution in the Calleguas Creek watershed, which drains fast-growing east county cities and empties into Mugu Lagoon. The district must submit a proposal for that project by July 19. The remaining $26,328 has been paid to the state Water Resources Control Board, said Veronica Cuevas-Alpuche, sanitary engineer for the regional board.

Reddy Pakala, manager of the water and sanitation services division for the county-run district, said his agency has begun an $8.5-million upgrade of the sewage treatment plant, expected to be completed next April. The work calls for removal of some sewage percolation ponds and installation of an aerated treatment system. In the meantime, temporary chemical treatment systems will be installed to clean up effluent.

“These violations do not impact the water quality in the basin, and we are constructing an upgrade to address all of the violations,” Pakala said.

Once the work is complete, the plant, which is located at 9550 Los Angeles Ave. in Moorpark, will be able to process 5 million gallons of waste water daily, 66% more than it now handles. Connection fees, paid by new Moorpark residents, will fund the improvements, Pakala said.

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Times Community News staffer Gail Davis contributed to this report.