HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-06-28 City Council (9)TO:
FROM:
City of Palo Alto
City Manager’s Report
HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL
CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: PUBLIC WORKS
DATE:
SUBJECT:
JUNE 28, 2004 CMR:280:04
2004 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT ON WATER POLLUTION
This is an informational report to Council and no action is needed.
BACKGROUND
On April 2, 200i, Palo Alto City Council adopted a Sustainability Policy, affirming its
intent of insuring that the community is able to meet its current needs without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The three
components of the policy are: 1) the economy, 2) social equity, and 3) the environment.
DISCUSSION
Reports summarizing the City’s accomplishments in its sustainability efforts were
prepared by Staff and submitted to Council for FY 2001-2002 and FY 2002-2003. Both
can be found on the City’s website at http:/Awv~;.pafd.or~/sustainabilitv/citv-
pro~ams.html.
This year a new reporting approach is being piloted. Walt Hays, Chair of Palo Alto’s
Sustainability Partnership between residents and staff,, has drafted the first of a series of
topic-specific sustainability reports. Mr. Hays and the Sustainability Partnership chose
water pollution control for the first report. Subsequent reports will summarize City
goals, initiatives and accomplishments on the categories established in prior year reports.
Staff believes that this approach will provide the Council with a better understanding of
the City’s pro~’ess toward implementing the Sustainability Policy. Additionally, staff
believes that this approach will foster a closer and more productive relationship with the
public.
The report summarizes the City’s successful efforts to control toxic pollutants during the
last 20 years. It also looks ahead to the challenges of the future, including bio-
accumulative pollutants such as mercury. A smaller number of numerical indicators are
used (compared to the first two Sustainability Reports) to increase readability and
broaden the appeal of the report. It will be widely distributed and comments on the
approach will be solicited.
CMR:280:04 Page 1 of 2
RESOURCE IMPACT
The Sustainability Report was prepared by Walt Hays with assistance Dom staff.
staff resource impacts of report preparation were minor.
The
PoLIcY IMPLICATION
The Sustainability Report is consistent wi~h the citywide Sustainability Policy and past
Council actions.
ATTACHiVIENTS
Attachment A:2004 Water Pollution Sustainability Report
P P-,EP AI-~D BY:
DEPARTMENT HEAD"
PHiL BOBEL
Manager Environmental Compliance
GLENN S. ROBERTS
Director of Public Works
C!TY M_ANAGER APPROVAL"
EMIL"
Assistant City Manager
CMR:280:04 Page 2 of 2
June 2004
In April 2001 the Council adopted a
Sustainability Policy; in December 2002 it
approved an implementation plan that divided
City activities into 10 categories and adopted
indicators to measure progress; and in June
2003 the staff presented a progress report on
all 10 categories. Then in the spring of 2004,
staff recommended a new approach to progress
reports, calling for them to be submitted one
department at a time and written by the
Sustainability Partnership with input from the
relevant personnel. This is the first such
report.
The 2003 report on Water combined the issues
of the sustainability and quality of water
supply with that of water pollution. In
discussions of the new policy, however, it was
decided that in the interest of clarity they
should be treated separately.
Since Palo Alto has always directed its sewage to
the Bay, sustainability under water pollution
has to be measured in terms of reducing
pollution, with the ultimate goal of eliminating
it. Starting with its initial incorporation as a
city, however, the City has been a leader, both
in treating that effluent to reduce water
pollution in the Bay, and in educating
companies and citizens to avoid polluting storm
water (which is not treated). To do so, it has
had to adapt and upgrade numerous times, in
response to new knowledge about pollutants,
increased requirements by the Regional Water
Quality Control Board (RWQCB), and changes in
effluent caused by changes in the local
economy. This report will provide a brief history
of those upgrades, and present sample
indicators for measuring progress on current
issues.
When Palo Alto incorporated in 1894, sewage
was handled in private outhouses and
cesspools. In 1898, the population of 3000
passed a $28,000 bond issue to build a sewer
network that discharged untreated sewage in
Mayfield Slough (near the old Sea Scout
building). While that was an improvement,
unusually high tides caused sewage to back up
onto city streets.
That, together with concerns about
contamination of a planned Baylands park and
yacht harbor, led the City to build its first
treatment plant in 1934, by which time the
population had grown to 27,000. That plant
was one of the first on the Bay, and while it
again was an improvement, it provided only
primary treatment, consisting only of removing
solids.
The primary effluent problem at that time was
the large quantities of organic matter, much of it
from local canneries. Discharging it into the
Bay created an enormous biological oxygen
demand (BOD), which caused aquatic creatures
to suffocate. The decomposition also caused the
Bay to stink.
The capacity of the plant was increased in
response to the growth of population and
industry, first in 1948 and again in 1956.
However, primary treatment was increasingly
insufficient. The resulting pollution led the
state, in the late 60s, to issue a "cease and
desist" order to Palo Alto, as well as to Mountain
View and Los Altos, who had built their own
small plants. In response, the cities agreed in
1968 to collaborate in building a new plant to
provide secondary treatment. That plant was
completed in 1972 for $11 million, with 55
percent of the funding provided by the EPA
under the Clean Water Act. In addition to the
three cities mentioned, it now serves the East
Palo Alto Sanitary District, Stanford, and Los
Altos Hills. Called the Regional Water Quality
Control Plant (RWQCP), it does not, as its name
may suggest, deal with the quality of drinking
water, but rather with improving the quality of
water in the Bay through continuously
improved treatment.
Secondary treatment, a large part of which
involves "digestion" of sewage by bacteria,
greatly reduced overall pollution. However,
there remained the problem of how to dispose
of the leftover sludge. To keep the plant as
small as possible m order to minimize its
impact on the Baylands, the City chose
incineration. (San Jose, by comparison, dries
its sludge in open furrows for use in
agriculture, with result that with six times Palo
Alto’s service area population it uses 72 times
as much space.)
As time went on, canneries were replaced with
the electronics plants that led to the title of
Silicon Valley, and the pollution problems
evolved from organic matter to metals,
particularly copper and nickel, which are
highly toxic. Fortunately, it turned out that
these metals naturally bonded to the bacteria
in the plant, which removed most of those
metals. The percent removed improved in
1978, with the addition of tertiary treatment,
in which filters remove very fine particles,
including heavy metals. In the early ’80s, the
EPA began to require pre-treatment of waste by
industries, i.e., mandating that they remove as
much contamination as possible prior to
discharge to the sewer. And over time, most of
the electronic fabricating plants moved to Asia,
reducing metal discharges even further.
Combined, those improvements led to a
dramatic decrease in the discharge of metals
into the Bay from the treatment plant, as
indicated in Figure 1 [copper discharge to Bay].
However, copper also enters the Bay through
storm water, which is not treated. One of the
main sources of copper in storm runoff is the
wearing of brake pads in vehicles. To solve
that problem, the City has joined the Brake
Pad Partnership, through which
manufacturers have agreed to reduce the use
of copper, as tests show it to be a significant
source of pollution. Another major source is
pesticides, discussed below.
Copper DischargeTo San Francisco Bay
40000 ]~
30000 t~_..~[] Influent (Ib/yr)
~" 200001-~
~.D Effluent (Ib/yr) I
~ 10000
o
Y e a r Figurel
In the ’90s, a new issue raised its head; namely,
the bio-accumulation of toxics in fish and birds.
As awareness of this problem increased, the
City (and its partners in the RWQCP) has again
adopted and introduced new programs. One
example is mercury, a highly toxic substance
which remains in very small amounts in the
sludge produced by the treatment plant,
volatilizes into the air when the sludge is
incinerated, and then falls into the Bay.
Mercury is contained in fluorescent lights,
certain older thermometers, and the amalgam
dentists use for tooth fillings. The City has
instituted programs to deal with each, paying
hardware stores to collect old lights, offering
free digital thermometers in exchange for ones
with mercury, and working with dentists to
eliminate discharge of mercury. (Mercury in
fillings does not cause harm; its primary threat
to humans is in the consumption of
contaminated fish.) These actions have yet to
cause levels of mercury to fall (Figure 2), but
that indicator should show progress by next
year.
Mercury Influent Figure 2
Palo Alto Wastewater Treatment Plant
25
2o
15
t0
o
2000
Year
2oo!2002 2003
~ Ba. ylands in circumstances
In addition, the City has undertaken major
regional efforts to educate retailers and
consumers about less toxic pest control through
quarterly workshops and extensive store
partnerships which promote the sale of less
toxic pest products. Proper disposal of
pesticides is promoted through the Household
Hazardous Waste program.
While the City is making progress on the toxics
issue, the first decade of the 21st century has
brought to light st~ another challenge --
endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs).
Scientific studies have shown a relationship
between exposure to EDCs and abnormal
thyroid function, sex alteration, poor hatching
success, decreased fertility and growth, and
altered behavior, especially in aquatic
organisms. The EPA has undertaken a study of
87,000 chemicals to determine which may have
disrupting effects. In this case, one of the major
sources is disposal of expired medications in the
sewage system, and the City has launched a
program to educate citizens to also treat those
medications as hazardous waste.
Another example is runoff of pesticides. Many
people assume that their primary source is
agriculture. In our area, however, it is
residences. And while the City’s use of pesticides
is regulated, residential use is not. In response
to this threat, the City has gone beyond
regulatory compliance, initiating a rigorous
Integrated Pest Management program to monitor
pesticide use, use as little as possible, and use
the least toxic chemicals when use is required.
The studies involved, and actions taken and
recommended, are contained in a thick volume
entitled "Pest Management and Pesticide Use
Report-2002." The report contains its own
indicators of progress, and is much too
voluminous to summarize.However, one
recommendation for fiscal year 2003-4 is typical:
The pollution prevention programs of the City have received a number of awards, including the
following:
¯ In 2002, the Water Quality Control Plant received a national second place award from the EPA for
an "Outstanding Pretreatment Program."
¯ In 2003, the California EPA presented the City of Palo Alto the "Integrated Pest Management
Innovator Award" for its leadership in alternative pest control.
From its inception, the City of Palo Alto has led the charge in committing to deal proactively and
creatively with new challenges in reducing pollution in the Bay. That commitment involves in-
depth analysis, training and implementation on many more fronts than a summary report like this
can cover. However, the programs shown in the graphs are typical, and thus represent appropriate
indicators of continuing progress.
tobe a sustainable community - one which meets its
of future generations to meet their own needs.
;through its programs and
of a blend of
to
VISION F0R qJ-IE WAT~P~SHED
concentrations in
and land) from the residuals
)CP.
~ (in the long term) the mass and
concentration of pollutants entering the ecosystem (air,
CLARABASIN land, and water) from the RWQCP.
WATERSHED MANA OEMENT hVITL~ TI~’E