Wastewater

Re "Tired of L.A.'s urban waste," Nov. 26 It's wrong to call wastewater biosolids "waste. " There's no waste in wastewater, and the faster we look at reusing every aspect of this resource, the better. At the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant near LAX, biosolids are carefully cleaned to the highest standards. Gas produced during this process is recovered and utilized to generate electricity. Biosolids are some of the richest fertilizer available - rich in phosphorous and nitrogen worth millions of dollars to farmers.

Re "Tired of L.A.'s urban waste," Nov. 26 It's wrong to call wastewater biosolids "waste. " There's no waste in wastewater, and the faster we look at reusing every aspect of this resource, the better. At the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant near LAX, biosolids are carefully cleaned to the highest standards. Gas produced during this process is recovered and utilized to generate electricity. Biosolids are some of the richest fertilizer available - rich in phosphorous and nitrogen worth millions of dollars to farmers.

Opponents malign it as "toilet to tap. " But a new National Research Council report says that reclaimed water can contribute a growing portion of the nation's drinking water supplies and be as safe as conventional sources. The assessment is especially relevant to Southern California, which has been a pioneer in recharging local aquifers with treated wastewater but still sends most of its runoff and treated water to the Pacific Ocean. A decade ago, public outcry and electoral politics thwarted a Los Angeles plan to partially replenish San Fernando Valley groundwater with recycled supplies.

The injection of wastewater from natural gas drilling into a disposal well probably caused a dozen earthquakes in Ohio, officials said Friday as they announced new regulations to deal with the issue. The findings about the probable cause of the earthquakes, which occurred in the Youngstown area between March and late December 2011, are likely to intensify an increasingly bitter debate about the safety of hydraulic fracturing in states that sit atop natural gas deposits. Hydraulic fracturing injects sand and water laced with chemicals into the earth at high pressure to break apart shale rock formations and free natural gas trapped inside.

In a conference room atop a downtown Los Angeles tower, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's point man on water conservation was confidently ticking off the protections built into a plan to recycle highly treated sewage effluent into the drinking supply. But when his staff explained that community meetings on the project might not begin until early next year, H. David Nahai quickly grew uneasy. That's too slow, too risky, the Department of Water and Power general manager told his team. "Folks on the street who'll hear about wastewater treatment [may]

The great sewer wars of Malibu have finally drawn to a close. Sewers won. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board agreed late Thursday to ban septic systems in central and eastern Malibu, a move that would end years of fierce debate over the wastewater devices still commonly used in one of Southern California's most picturesque and exclusive coastal communities. New septic systems will not be permitted in Malibu and owners of existing systems will have to halt wastewater discharges within a decade.

Public health officials Wednesday reopened Inner and Outer Cabrillo Beach after determining that 3 million gallons of treated wastewater discharged into Los Angeles Harbor from a nearby treatment plant did not contain harmful chemicals or bacteria. Public health officials closed the beach Tuesday after the Los Angeles City Terminal Treatment Plant accidentally discharged wastewater, which already had been treated for harmful waste products, into the harbor. Officials were concerned that some of the water may have flowed to the public beach.

Re "EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief's Letter to Rove," June 13 The Environmental Protection Agency correctly interpreted the intent of Congress in the recent finalization of the rule to keep storm-water runoff clean near oil drilling sites and construction zones. Since 1987, it has been the law that uncontaminated storm-water discharges from natural gas and oil development activities, including sediment, do not require a specific wastewater permit from the EPA. However, the EPA continued to misinterpret the law, forcing Congress to act in last year's energy bill.

The city of Solvang has agreed to process the extra sewage generated by the casino that the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians plans to open at the end of the month. The tribe's $1-million-plus water treatment facility will be finished in about a year. Solvang officials agreed to provide up to 40,000 gallons of sewage capacity each day at a one-time cost of about $73,000.

Here's a posting from the "ick" files. Scientsts are now delving into an uncharted environment to study human and other viruses: raw sewage. In a study published Tuesday in the online journal mBio, researchers from the U.S. and Spainfound that untreated human wastewater -- "the effluence of society," they wrote -- contains an incredible diversity of viruses ... and that the vast majority are viruses we hadn't known of before. Click for the abstract . At this point, biologists know of about 3,000 different viruses, representing 84 different viral families -- but they suspect that those known bugs are just the tip of the iceberg.

Opponents malign it as "toilet to tap. " But a new National Research Council report says that reclaimed water can contribute a growing portion of the nation's drinking water supplies and be as safe as conventional sources. The assessment is especially relevant to Southern California, which has been a pioneer in recharging local aquifers with treated wastewater but still sends most of its runoff and treated water to the Pacific Ocean. A decade ago, public outcry and electoral politics thwarted a Los Angeles plan to partially replenish San Fernando Valley groundwater with recycled supplies.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it planned to regulate wastewater discharged by companies producing natural gas from shale formations, including chemically laced water used in a controversial extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing. The EPA's initiative comes as water-intensive natural gas production has spread around the country, raising concerns about the effects on drinking-water supplies. The practice, also known as fracking, involves shooting water infused with chemicals and sand at high pressure into shale formations to unlock reservoirs of natural gas. The EPA will try to determine what to do with water used during fracking, as well as water that is already underground and flows back up the well.

Here's a posting from the "ick" files. Scientsts are now delving into an uncharted environment to study human and other viruses: raw sewage. In a study published Tuesday in the online journal mBio, researchers from the U.S. and Spainfound that untreated human wastewater -- "the effluence of society," they wrote -- contains an incredible diversity of viruses ... and that the vast majority are viruses we hadn't known of before. Click for the abstract . At this point, biologists know of about 3,000 different viruses, representing 84 different viral families -- but they suspect that those known bugs are just the tip of the iceberg.

It started last month when workers at a Paso Robles wastewater treatment plant noticed what appeared to be a giant rodent roaming the facility. The creature eventually swam toward the Salinas River and disappeared from sight, but not before worker Nick Kamp had taken a few photos. He and a co-worker called the California Department of Fish and Game to report what they had seen. Responding wardens used the pictures to confirm that the animal was in fact a capybara — an adult they believe weighs 100 to 120 pounds.

Since 2007, members of the Achuar tribe, indigenous to Peru's Amazon rain forest, have been fighting to have their class-action suit against Occidental Petroleum tried in the United States. The Achuar allege that over a 30-year period, the Westwood-based oil company dumped millions of gallons of wastewater into their rivers and disposed of waste in unlined pits, sickening people and contaminating the land. The company, they maintain, should be held accountable in California courts. This week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, overturning a lower court ruling that said Maynas Carijano vs. Occidental Petroleum should be tried in Peru.

Landfills, with the tendency to belch noxious greenhouse gases, have long gotten a bad rap from environmentalists. But now several clean-power technology companies believe waste can be a source of environmentally friendly energy. FlexEnergy, an Irvine company, showed off a pilot generator Thursday that converts previously unusable methane gas seeping from a Riverside County landfill into 100 kilowatts of electricity. That could be used to help run the sprawling landfill operations or light up more than 100 homes.

David Joyce marched his way to the front of the U.S. immigration line using his pocketbook, sinking half a million dollars into a Vermont ski resort. The British citizen had spent years in a futile effort to secure green cards for himself, his wife and their 9-year-old son so they could relocate to sunny Florida. Then, a fellow emigre tipped him off to a little-known federal program that helps foreigners gain permanent U.S. residency by investing in American businesses. Graphic: Number of investors' visas to U.S. "In six months, we had our green cards," said Joyce, 51. "Considering everything we've been through, this was easy.

What happens to the 40% of food produced but never eaten in the U.S. each year, the mounds of perfect fruit passed over by grocery store shoppers, the tons of meat and milk left to expire? At Ralphs, one of the oldest and largest supermarket chains on the West Coast, it helps keep the power on. In a sprawling Compton distribution center that the company shares with its fellow Kroger Co. subsidiary Food 4 Less, organic matter otherwise destined for a landfill is rerouted instead into the facility's energy grid.

You have to be a scuba diver to see the difference, but areas of Santa Monica Bay that were historically fouled by sewage discharges are making a strong comeback. The new State of the Bay report notes the revival of bottom-dwelling marine life in the wake of treatment upgrades at the two big wastewater plants that empty into the bay several miles from shore. Diver surveys have documented sea animals and plants on the sea floor "where really it was barren before," said Shelley Luce, executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which issues the report every five years.

The great sewer wars of Malibu have finally drawn to a close. Sewers won. The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board agreed late Thursday to ban septic systems in central and eastern Malibu, a move that would end years of fierce debate over the wastewater devices still commonly used in one of Southern California's most picturesque and exclusive coastal communities. New septic systems will not be permitted in Malibu and owners of existing systems will have to halt wastewater discharges within a decade.