Civil Grand Jury 2020/2021 County of Lake Covid-19 Mandate Ordinance (note: Grand Jury Reports are completed many weeks

Additional Recommendations 4

These recommendations are not explicitly linked to specific findings.

• R4

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  County government departments serving the elderly and disabled and AAA/Senior Centers should consider assisting their clients or encouraging their clients’ families/caregivers to create an individualized evacuation plan. (F-6, F-8, F-13)
• R5

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  County government departments serving the elderly and disabled, as well as the law-enforcement agencies, should confirm that they can currently access the PG&E Medical Baseline Program list or else submit a NDA to permit access. (F-7, F-13)
• R6

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  The Sheriff should consider providing bilingual communications universally to the public during emergencies. (F-5)
• R7

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  The OES Manager should update the AFN Annex of the County’s Emergency Operations Plan from its 2017 edition. (F-10) 52 RESPONSES: Pursuant to Penal Code section 933(c), the following Responses are required: Board of Supervisors (R-2) 90 days Sheriff (R-1, R-2, R-6, R-7) 60 days The following Responses are invited: Department of Social Services (R-3, R-4, R-5) 90 days Department of Behavioral Health (R-4, R-5) 90 days Clearlake Police Department (R-5) 60 days 53 54 55 56 Civil Grand Jury 2020/2021 Wastewater - Getting It Right Conservation, ecology, and the environment: these are areas getting increased interest everywhere around the world. It is always easy to focus on portions of these topics getting lots of attention in the news. However, the greater subjects contain perhaps less noticeable but critically important segments that underlie all of our daily lives. One of these segments is sewage and the removal of wastewater. In Lake County, a good portion of rural residences and businesses are maintained by septic systems. The larger majority of locations, though, are serviced by specialized semi-private or public departments. The primary systems the Grand Jury investigated are: Clearlake Oaks Community Water District Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District Lake County Special Districts Each of these systems provides well designed and monitored, as well as high quality and efficient, modern technology to fulfill their needed goals. Each of them has broad coverage over wide service areas maintaining everything from the sewers under the streets as the primary movement points through pumping stations, through filtration processing, and through cleaning/sanitizing techniques until the re-processed water is returned to the environment in several ways. In each of these differing districts, great attention is given to not only deal with a standard or normal level of need but also to have working systems and methods to deal with unexpected and exceptional needs (such as during very significant weather/rain occurrences). In addition to the extent of the residential and commercial wastewater handling in our cities and towns, the realm of wastewater processing and handling for selected areas of agriculture – particularly the vineyards – has importance to the County. While not necessarily a topic of common conversation, Lake County citizens should take pride in how our combined systems are not only servicing the basic need but also in participation in quite innovative and future-thinking solutions benefiting both our people and our environment. Discussion Sewage, when reaching the end of the sewer piping system, goes through three basic treatment steps: a) the ‘primary’ has the removal of large objects, some solids (such as debris or gravel or sand), and certain liquids and semi-liquids (such as fats, oils, and grease); b) the ‘secondary treatment’ which is the degradation of biological content (human waste, food, soaps, detergents); and c) the ‘tertiary treatment’ which is the final process to increase the water quality to desired levels before it is returned to the environment. There can be many segments, each of importance and working in unison with the others, in these basic steps. The Grand Jury reviewed engineering plans for each of the three districts as well as emergency and overflow systems and procedures to assure maximum safety and environmental responsibility. An extended tour was made of the County operations located northwest of Lakeport and in Middletown. This proved to be far more interesting and informative than any of the jurors would have imagined prior to the visit. A “step-by-step” description of the Lakeport facility shows: 1) All raw sewage that has moved through piping and pumps arrives at the preliminary screening and ‘comminutor’ (grinder) station (Note – this was the only point in the entire facility/process that evidenced any particular or expected odor at all.) 58 2) The wastewater continues through grit filters and the primary clarifier for removal of sludge that is separately treated for disposal. 3) The water then proceeds to the first aeration tank to begin a further separation of sludge through an activated biological process. 4) The water is then moved to a different pond where a new technology called the “Blue Frog System” (a commercial name) where oxygen is moved laterally through numerous water columns – as opposed to the more traditional vertical movement – to dissolve bio-solids, which allows them to settle and then, at a known and controlled rate, decompose. This step keeps a quantity of active bio- material in the pond to facilitate the ongoing process. 5) Upon completion of the lateral oxygenation process, the water passes through a chemical monitoring station where small amounts of disinfectant chemicals are added as necessary. 6) The water moves to another aeration pond to complete the purification process. 7) The water then is pumped to a final holding pond. 59 *****All measures for safety are rigorously identified and followed at the facility***** Within this processing facility is a central district monitoring system that entails a quite large number of factors. In addition to the chemical/purity sensors throughout the above processes, there are reporting sensors from every pumping station throughout the entire County-operated sewage and effluent (ready for return to the environment) water. These data inputs are formatted and recorded to allow long term tracking, monitoring, and projection of system maintenance needs, which is very thorough and efficient. Short-term planned updates to this capability will allow real-time monitors to immediately alert Special Districts staff of any system shutdown or failure and to assure response on the scene in a very short time anytime day or night. This overall facility has a large solar panel array (joining with conventional generators) to provide power even during times of area-wide disruptions (such as Public Safety Power Shutoffs) A system upgrade is planned to install Tesla storage batteries for increased capacity and efficiency for the solar array. As noted earlier, the effluent water can be returned to the environment in several ways. For Hidden Valley Lake, some of the effluent is spread (via giant sprinklers) over large tracts of open fields. Some other portions are sent for non- potable usages in their areas. Some other portions are intentionally funneled to water runs that flow away from any public waterway and allow for natural evaporation to progress. For Lake County Special Districts, including Clearlake Oaks, the effluent water is used in a unique and highly environmentally sensitive way. The combined effluent from the several facilities that operate similarly to the one described above (located in Lakeport, Clearlake Oaks, Clearlake, and Middletown) is sent through a major pipeline with multiple pumping stations from the north central part of the county, all the way around the Lake, down to the southwestern portion of the county 61 The effluent leaves the control of Lake County outside of Middletown where it is then further pumped by CalPine (commercial energy production consortium) to ‘The Geysers’ twenty plus steam geothermal electricity generation sites. The effluent water is injected under high pressure into the geothermal active areas (322 steam wells and 54 injection wells) in the Mayacamas Mountains where it is converted to steam that powers turbines for generation of electricity. The heat for this process comes from magma located four miles beneath the surface. This group of generation facilities, utilizing Lake County effluent wastewater as well as effluent water from Santa Rosa, is the largest geothermal electricity generation center in the world. Lake County delivers eight to nine million gallons of reclaimed water per day through our county-wide pipeline, equating to roughly 3 billion gallons each year. Winery Wastewater For our county’s important wine industry, a very different set of factors, processes, and controls are used. Across California there are more than 4,600 wine grape growers and more than 2,800 wineries. California produced 680 million gallons of wine last year. Wastewater production from the wine industry varies (by location and type of grape/wine) from 3 to 10 gallons of wastewater per gallon of consumable wine. Looking at averages would indicate about 4 billion gallons of specialized wastewater statewide per year. To manage this, a number of Regional Water Quality Control Boards have been established for differing sections of California. The largest is the Central Valley region and Lake County is within their designated control area. The individual regional boards have differing standards they set for their districts. The Central Valley regional standards have been the most restrictive/controlled of any region in the state. Untreated wastewater from wine production contains everything from organic solids (leaves, stems, skins, seeds and pulp) to yeast to salts and other chemicals to regular dirt. All winery wastewater is collected for cleansing/processing. The smaller growers and bottlers often ship the untreated wastewater out to specialized facilities for processing. The larger producers generally do that conversion from untreated to effluent on their own property. The actual process has many similarities to the general sewage treatment process. Greater attention is paid to agricultural specific chemical/biological supplements and additives such as pesticides and fertilizers. Often aeration ponds are replaced with evaporation ponds wherein remaining sludge can be more readily collected and further processed. But, the aeration pond process does still have some significant usage in the industry. The goal of any effluent water production is to finally utilize it for other agricultural, construction (roads/highways would be common), decorative, and other non-potable applications. As the volume of consumable wine increases at any given industry location, the wastewater processing testing, quality, handling, and effluent dispersal regulations becomes more stringent. Mistakes leading to ground water or surface water contamination – while quite rare – are dealt with quickly and severely. For such a large and broad geographic based industry, the successes in meeting and exceeding the required standards are a matter of industry-wide pride. Lake County’s wineries attain the same forward thinking and environmentally protective results as does our general sewage processing system. COVID-19 and Wastewater The public has brought forward numerous questions regarding COVID-19 and the sewage processing systems in our county. Very early on in the first stages of learning about, and reactions to, the virus, testing was done by an out-of-state company specifically looking for signs of waste bearing the virus. As our county health department, using nasal swab techniques, was determining how much the virus might have spread in certain portions of our population, the simultaneous wastewater testing was confirming that the actual spread of the virus was broader based and detectable in many areas of the county. Even though both methods still showed small numbers of actual cases, they did verify the presence and spread of the virus. These kinds of wastewater testing began in March, 2020 and continued through until July, 2020 at which point no questions remained as to the reality of the virus spreading throughout the entire county. It is most important to note that the careful processing steps turning wastewater into effluent water done by all of the sewage districts in Lake County completely disinfects any traces of COVID-19. There has not been, nor will there be, any spread of COVID-19 via these facilities. Findings: F1. The sewage processing facilities maintained by Lake County Special Districts and the reviewed operations in Clearlake Oaks and Hidden Valley Lake are meeting their quality and service goals. F2. The processing of wastewater into effluent water for agricultural and energy production usage is a progressive achievement for Lake County and of significant importance in environmental protection and renewable resource management. Recommendations: R1. A specific program be developed - that provides information and tours (methods of operation and environmental impact) for appropriate secondary school science classes - between the Lake County Office of Education and Lake County Special Districts Department. The Grand Jury invites the following to respond: Board of Supervisors (R1) (90 days) Lake County Superintendent of Schools (R1) (60 days) 65 66 67 68