Community Corner

Sanitary District Releases Report on December's 2.6 Million Gallon Sewage Spills

Regional Water Quality Board expected to review report on what led to the spills and rule on district's culpability in coming weeks.

Just over two month after t, the Ross Valley Sanitary District has released a 369-page report prepared for the Regional Water Quality Board documenting the circumstances that led to the spills. The water quality board will then make its decision on the culpability of the district and if any fines should be leveled.

The district’s report concludes that debris in the pipe, in addition to crushed pipe in the area under the Kent Middle School track, caused the spills. The district in its documentation points the finger at either contractor negligence on recently finished work on that pipe or vandalism that dumped excessive debris into the system.

“I think it would be absurd to find us culpable,” said General Manager Brett Richards.

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Richards points primarily to the fact that in October a five-inch rain event (which causes excessive water to fill the system) didn’t result in any spills, despite the Kentfield pump station being turned off and the district relying on a smaller bypass pipe during that time. With that same bypass system and the pump station being off-line, the two-inch rainfall on Dec. 17 caused an 842,000 gallon spill in the area behind Kent Middle School and College of Marin. This suggests, the report argues, that something had changed and blocked the pipes during that time.

The second spill on Dec. 22 occurred “during no rainfall at all, approximately late morning, during a slow part of the day, while the sun was shining,” said the report, which means it is unlikely that capacity issues on the part of the district caused the spill. After an older Techite pipe cracked when it was refilled along the Corte Madera Creek berm and dumped just over 1,000 gallons into Creek Park, the spill should have been limited to that amount. But, after the pump station was turned off, 1.8 million gallons ended up coming up in the same spot as the previous spill – despite the fact that no rain was falling and no excess overflow was seen at any other points in the sewage system. This suggests an abnormal blockage, said the report.

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It also, said Richards, negates an argument critics of the district had been making: that the pump station being off-line and district incompetence is what caused the December spills.

Rick Holland, a longtime critic of the district, who has also run for the board, said that employees have been risking their jobs to tell him that it was mismanagement, such as choosing to have the pump station off-line and not testing the new pipe before refilling it, that led to the spills.

“Everything that happened were decisions made by the management at the district,” said Holland.

According to the report, the district also ran a camera through the pipes being replaced before JMB Construction began work on the hill above Woodlands Market and began installing new pipes under Kent Middle School. The video work showed the pipes in good condition. But, video and follow-up excavation after the spill shows two sections of pipe about 20 feet total crushed, allowing very little effluent to pass through. (Pictures can be seen at right.)

Those two crushed sections were aligned with pits JMB Construction had dug to complete its new pipe installation alongside the existing pipe. Additionally, when the area was excavated following the two spills, engineered backfill – a specific type of engineering soil – and special geotechnical fabric that would hold up the backfill was packed around the crushed pipe, suggesting, said Richards, someone with engineering expertise was aware of the broken pipe and attempted to cover it up.

Immediately after the December spills, – and is, reportedly, still finding some debris in its pipes and pumps. The debris included nail gun cartridges, chunk of track material, large pieces of asphalt, engineered backfill, wire netting, and two construction helmets. This debris clogged one of the barrels in the siphon near the spill, which would have pushed the sewage on through the system.

The report concludes that either the debris or the crushed pipe would have been enough on its own to cause the spills.

The district is currently holding back payments to JMB Construction, arguing that the company is responsible for the crushed pipes and the construction debris that was found in the system. At the same time, JMB is contractually obligated to complete and is in the process of finishing the remaining $900,000 worth of work further up the hill.

(Additional, unrelated work is being completed on the Kentfield Force Main along the creek by Maggiora & Ghilotti.)

JMB Construction declined to comment on the report. They have in the past, though, denied any wrongdoing, arguing instead that the pump station being off-line during the rainfall and the smaller pipe bypass system is what caused the spills. 

At the time of the spills, the district filed a police report and contacted the FBI and EPA on the vandalism charges. Mary Simms, spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency, said that at this time the EPA has suspended its investigation.

Richards, though, said he is asking in an addendum to the released report that the EPA reopen its criminal investigation.

Warning signs, required by law to be posted around a spill area, and barricades were stolen following the spills, said the district. They have been reappearing, said Richards in the addendum letter to the Regional Water Quality Board, in areas around the creek, giving the appearance that additional spills have been occurring over the last two months. Last Monday, the stack of barricades also reappeared, placed around the creek and park.

“It’s totally malicious,” said Richards.

The addendum letter suggests that this type of organized vandalism has a goal of undermining the district and it suggests that an individual who has repeatedly called for the district to consolidate and be abolished could possibly be behind the vandalism and stolen signs.

Holland, head of a Coalition to Consolidate the Ross Valley Sanitary District, said he’s not shocked the district is trying to point fingers and come up with excuses, but that he never stole their signs.

“I would have been posting huge billboards saying look at the incompetence instead,” he joked.

The Regional Water Quality Board is expected to consider the district’s report in the coming weeks and issue a ruling, which could result in a large fine on the district. If that is the case, though, the district may fight the board’s ruling and appeal to a higher court.


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