Murphys Sanitary District Policies and Procedures Manual

As of the writing of this report, the Policies and Procedures Manual currently in use is out of date with current law and labor practices.

In 2002, MSD entered into two Installment Sale Agreements with the Municipal Finance Corporation to undertake improvements to its wastewater system. The first agreement, dated January 23,2002, was in the amount of $350,000 for the purposes of expanding Pond 4. This expansion would increase the capacity of Pond 4 from its current 49 million-gallon capacity to 68 million gallons. In addition, various upgrades to the pump house, including the replacement and upgrading of the generator and electrical panel, were included in the project. The second agreement, dated March 25,2002, was in the amount of $400,000 for the purposes of expansion and improvements to the District's wastewater treatment plant. The treatment plant upgrade started in 2002 is still not operating, as contracted, due to flawed design by the prior engineering firm. The new district engineer has yet to get corrections made. Thus the District is unable to meet the 76 waste discharge requirements for MSD adopted by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB). In addition, the new district engineer's headquarters, now located in Eureka, makes communications difficult between the district engineer and his support staff.

In the opinion of the Grand Jury, an agreement between MSD and the owners of a vineyard (defined in the contract as 'User') leaves the district exposed. Under Item #2, 'Water Quantity’, the contract stipulates that, "If User needs additional water each year to meet its demand, the district agrees to cooperate with User and UPUD (Union Public Utility District) to assure passage of water through District facilities". This appears to be an open-ended obligation.

Currently, the User is the only entity under contract to accept the treated water discharged from MSD. Should a problem occur at the User's facility with distribution, or if the User switched to using Ag water for its facilities, the District would be unable to discharge treated water, thus creating a strain on storage capacity.

Waste discharge requirements specified for the MSD by the RWQCB in December 2000 are out of compliance. The MSD has not been able to meet the required two-foot freeboard on its main storage reservoir (Pond 4) during the winter months and has had to discharge wastewater to the User to prevent overflows from the reservoir. The RWQCB has required MSD to prepare a hydraulic balance analysis to determine the treatment facility's ability to contain storm water and wastewater due to storm events within a 100-year recurrence interval.