Think Environment Week

New treatment
plant gets WQA’s
seal of approval
By Dereck Andrade
Correspondent
I
f the San Gabriel Valley Water Quality
Authority gets its way, Alhambra’s new
water treatment plant slated to open
Oct. 2 will be a fountain of success in
the WQA’s latest quest to help the San
Gabriel Valley become more self reliant
on its own ground water supply and
less dependent on expensive, outside
sources.
The WQA (www.wqa.com) and the
city of Alhambra will stand united when Phase II of
the $13.5 million plant is unveiled during a dedication
ceremony open to the public from 9 to 11 a.m. at the
Alhambra Groundwater Treatment Plant at 512 S.
Granada Ave., adjacent to the Alhambra Community
Gardens.
That is two years to the day
when Alhambra first broke
ground on the project in 2006, city
officials said.
“We look to the city of
Alhambra as a partner, working
with us for the greater cause,”
said Grace Kast, executive director
of the West Covina-based WQA.
“Now they can augment their
own ground water supply.”
GRACE KAST
The WQA provided the city
with $1,455,800 for construction of the facility that is
near Clay Court. The plant will be computer-operated
onsite, and the city has hired an additional two pump
operators, city officials said.
There are two buildings that house the treatment
plant, according to Martin Ray, the city’s deputy
director of utilities. The first is 11,935 square feet. It
contains seven pairs of granular activated carbon
contactors — each pair is capable of processing up to
1,000 gallons per minute — and four nitrate removal
vessels and six tanks for various uses, Ray said.
The second building is 2,340 square feet and contains
a chlorine generation system, four variable speed
pumps and office space for the supervisory control and
data acquisition control system.
“Anything that helps to offset the cost of water to the
rate payers is a good thing,” Kast said. “(With) this
project clean-up, our goal was to make sure that the
water that is cleaned has a beneficial use.”
The Alhambra treatment plant will process 7,000 gallons of water per minute, utilizing liquid-phase granular activated carbon, more commonly referred to as
LGAC, and ion-exchange treatment technologies. The
combination is expected to remove volatile organic
compounds and nitrates from the city’s existing well
water into a useable, precious resource for residents
and businesses.
The treatment project is part of Alhambra’s larger
Capital Improvement Plan that is managed by the
city’s Water Resources and Capital Projects Division,
which is overseen by the city’s utility department
(http://cityofalhambra.org/government/utilities/
water_resources.html). The city prides itself on a stellar record of providing safe drinking water to its residents, according to Ray.
“What this project will help us do is to take water
from two existing wells that we are pumping and
blending now, and two wells that are out of service
because of contaminants from the 1980s,” he said.
One of those existing wells is on the site of the new
treatment plant, while the other is just west near
Mission Drive, Ray said. The city is still awaiting word
from the Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.
gov) on its ongoing investigation on what, or possibly
more importantly, who may have contaminated the
city’s underground water supply.
“As far as I know, the PRP (potentially responsible
party) has not been identified by the EPA,” Ray said.
Groundwater contamination is not new to the San
Gabriel Valley. Baldwin Park, El Monte and South El
Monte have a long history of having groundwater
contamination caused by perchlorate, a chemical used
as the primary ingredient in solid rocket fuels, missiles
and fireworks.
Alhambra’s new plant is expected to treat 11,260 acre
feet of water per year. If that sounds like a lot of water,
it is, considering one acre foot of water is equal to providing water to a family of four for a year. Do the
math and Alhambra is treating enough water for
11,260 families.
Considering the population of Alhambra is now at
92,158, according to the city’s website, a year-to-year
increase of 0.94 percent from 2000 U.S. Census data of
85,804, the timing could not have been better, because
the city’s water needs have increased incrementally.
Kast said the WQA will reimburse Alhambra up to
$702,220 for one year of operations and maintenance,
what water quality officials call “treatment and remediation,” for the actual clean-up.
Alhambra must show the WQA a list of its expenses,
which would cover carbon change-outs; electrical,
including the pumping cost to boost the water out of
the ground, push it through the plant, and then
through the distribution system, and monitoring the
water quality, Ray said.
Because government bonds do not cover O&M,
according to Burgess, the WQA and its partners want
state and federal elected officials to recognize that
bond monies are needed to start helping fund the
entire clean-up effort from start to finish.
The WQA’s partnership with Alhambra also helps
reduce the need for water from external sources such
as Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power that
gets its water supply from the Colorado River and the
State Water Project. “This will help us become less
dependent on the MWD,” Ray said.
It also helps to remind San Gabriel Valley cities
that California is facing severe drought conditions.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger (www.gov.ca.gov/
executiveorder/9797) in June declared a statewide
drought order to force into effect water conservation
and water-efficiency programs.
“We want to clean the basin up and get these
contaminants out,” Ray said. “If you don’t start, you
never get there. It is going to help us to meet all of the
state and federal regulations. That’s our goal. To serve
a wholesome product to our customers since water is
the only utility that anyone consumes.”
But the WQA’s Kast gives full credit to Alhambra for
taking the lead in cleaning up its groundwater issues.
Greg Nordbak, chairman of the board of the WQA,
said he thinks water treatment plants are critical for
not only the survival of the San Gabriel Valley but all
of Southern California.
“People seem to lose track of the fact that Southern
California is a desert,” he said. “Water is looked at
without a thought. We want to get ahead of the game
and be self-sufficient in times of water shortages.”
Nordbak said that everyone is aware that the largest
disconnect between Northern and Southern California
is water allotment. “We need to treat our water to take
some of the strain off the water that we are allotted
from Northern California,” he said. “With the ability
to treat our water, it relieves some of that burden.”
Water Quality Authority Board Members
Greg Nordbak
Chairman
Bob Kuhn
Vice Chairman
Margaret Clark
Secretary
Jim Byerrum
Treasurer
Al Contreras
Board Member
Carol Montaro
Board Member
Michael Whitehead
Board Member
13