Regional wastewater talks trickling in Yuba County

A regional wastewater treatment facility is possible, but is it feasible to serve southern Yuba County?

Dozens of elected officials and paid employees of local agencies met Wednesday to discuss the possibility. Many of the officials in Linda, Wheatland, Olivehurst, Marysville and Beale Air Force Base, said they were open to the idea.

"The sun, the moon and the stars all need to align in order for regionalization to make sense," said Steve Decou, project manager from CH2M Hill, a engineering company that builds wastewater treatment plants. "If one participant can't fund their share, you can't expect other regional partners to fund that share."

The meeting included information and presentations from the state Water Resources Control Board and two successful regional facilities in Placer and Sacramento counties.

Though specific project costs or benefits for Yuba County were not discussed, the meeting, according to Yuba County Administrator Robert Bendorf, was held in order to begin discussions of a regionalized plant.

Bendorf had said previously a regional effort could benefit the residents and current jurisdictions in the long term.

Benefits to a regional wastewater system include a smaller carbon footprint for county plants, less discharged waste into local waterways and a greater capacity for growth. Some challenges, though, include convincing the general public to pay for the cost and the cost to construct pipelines to plants.

Mayor Enita Elphick said Wheatland has been interested in regionalization for the past five years. She said the city faces a lot of future growth and accommodating that could be a challenge because building pipelines to plants could be expensive.

"We can't build for future growth," Elphick said. "We could be 30,000 or 60,000 people in the near future. We'd have to keep putting in new pipes."

Wheatland announced it was exploring the possibility of partnering with Beale on a treatment facility in July. Additionally, Marysville's current plant has a cease and desist order because it is out of compliance. Officials have said a pipeline to the Linda facility is a possibility.

Olivehurst Public Utility District, though, is in compliance and has the ability to nearly double in size after that agency completed a new plant in August 2006.

"We have no problem," with a regional plant, said Larry Patty, OPUD director. "In fact, we welcome it."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com