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Raw Sewage Spill during Russian River Flood at Vacation Beach

On March 6th, as Chair of

“I am trying to find out who is in charge of the raw sewage cleanup and enforcing sanitary regulations. The flood mud at our house is so bad because of this raw sewage. It looked like it was so much more sewage flowing out than ever before and this keeps happening even when the river only goes slightly above flood stage.” In another email she told me that the manhole near her house started pouring out raw sewage on Tuesday afternoon (February 26th, about 1.5 days before peak flow late Wednesday, February 27th) and did not stop until the following Saturday afternoon (March 2nd), which comes to roughly four days of raw sewage flow. She described the mess as being oily and sludge-like and smelling like feces, and that it had happened many times before.

Initially, she had called various agencies and did not receive satisfactory responses. Each agency told her to call someone else. At my suggestion, she contacted Regional Water Board office on March 7th, as did I, and the staff person said he would get back to us, but did not. I saw him on March 19th at their office and he said he’s waiting until a 45-day report comes in about a month from now. He explained that we should not worry since there was so much water in the river, it would dilute the toxins.

To be fair, there were many crises going on at the time of the flood, but it would seem that a major raw sewage spill would be worthy of a notice to affected residents. In checking Regional Board files two weeks later (March 19th), we found nothing of the spill in the files. The Vacation Beach homeowner (with three young children) finally got hold of Water Agency staff (operators of the system), but they weren’t very helpful in terms of assuring her that the situation was safe for her and her family. They would not agree to clean her front yard and they took coliform samples rather than a full range of toxins. We recognize that conditions at the time were difficult, but staff at the various agencies exhibited little concern for providing meaningful assurances and help to the public.

This property owner’s main concern was getting her yard and the surrounding environment adequately tested for pollutants and having them thoroughly cleaned up, including her front yard. It concerned her that there was inadequate notice or warning about the spill as the only sign posted was a little one that forced the reader to walk in the sewage in order to read it. Furthermore, SCWA staff rerouted a discharge pipe to a neighbor’s property where it flooded his front yard. I got the impression that Water Agency personnel were not very helpful, made several serious mistakes, and may have been ill-equipped to deal with this emergency.

There is a dire need for a community emergency plan that deals with all aspects of flood and sewer failures. (Sewer failures with RRCSD often occur during floods of 40’ and more.) Raising houses doesn’t do much good if people are flushing toilets during high waters and aging pipes allow for infiltration and inflow. People need to be educated about limiting water use during high water situations, and full disclosure about risks should be mandatory. Was this event intentionally kept secret from the public?

Agencies should willingly help all those affected by this spill, including thorough cleanup of affected properties. An emergency alert system to warn people of floods and spills and other disasters is needed; education of the community should be provided for what to do in various scenarios, and a permanent remedy provided as soon as possible. The Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) is masterful at getting grants and loans for their water delivery system, but need to put the same effort into finding funds for west county wastewater projects.

There was a big spill at this same Vacation Beach site in 2014 (breakage of a 16” pipe and estimated spill of 100,000 gallons of raw sewage) for which they received a significant fine. About that time, SCWA promised to rebuild/replace one pump station (of the system’s 11 pump system) each year. So far, none have been replaced.

Regional Board files indicate that a new force main had been discussed over the last five years, but it would be very expensive. Ratepayers have some of the highest bills in the County, topping $1550 each year and with average increases of 5% per year. Then there is the likely addition of Monte Rio and Villa Grande to Guerneville’s system since major funding sources generally don’t allow financial loans and grants to individual homeowners for septic improvements if there is a local central sewer system nearby.

The truth is, it is not feasible to put central sewer systems close to a flooding river in a fragile environment and also allow major construction in the 100-year flood plain.

A good portion of the housing and commercial stock regularly gets inundated or cut off in floods over 40’. With global warming and a rising ocean, this is bound to get much worse, and atmospheric rivers may become a common occurrence. We need to plan for the future. We believe that innovative septic solutions should be pursued for the rest of West County and that a voluntary buy-out program of homes close to the river should be considered. Russian River has one of the highest levels of repetitive flood claims in the nation.

Detailed planning needs to occur and the public needs to be fully educated on what to do and who to call during such emergencies. Residents should be informed of water quality issues with flood water (highly toxic) and raw sewage in a timely manner. They need to know safeguards to take if they MUST be in contact with the water. Also, we wonder how migrating coho and sensitive aquatic creatures are affected by exposure to nasty toxins in both flood and sewer waters? Is there any way to minimize this?

In general, disaster planning resources need to be reviewed, revised where inadequate, and taken to the public so as to inform them of who to call for what types of emergencies. Perhaps health advisories telling people not to catch and eat river fish at this time would also be appropriate. It would be helpful to have a public meeting, give people information about what happened, and ask the public for input on what they need to know if the situation should repeat itself.

Russian River Watershed Protection Committeewww.rrwpc.org

Home is the Lower River

After traveling south for over 80 miles, the Russian River makes a sharp right turn at Forestville and heads west for about 25 miles where it flows into the ocean at the town of Jenner. Mark West Creek and Laguna de Santa Rosa are major watersheds that converge with the Russian River at the river bend.

The ambiance of the lower Russian River has changed relatively little in the last forty years. Visitors come here from all over the world to experience our paradise. The waterway is thickly lined with giant redwoods for most of its westerly course, and summer cabins are hidden on hillsides, riverbanks, and in deep interior canyons. About two-thirds of the former cabins have been converted to full-time use over the last 25 years.

The Russian River used to be one of the three greatest Steelhead fisheries on the North Coast. Fishermen flocked here from far and wide every winter to fish. It is only in the last fifty years, that their numbers have been decimated, and the Endangered Species Act has stepped in to play a major role in river management. It is one of RRWPC's major concerns, however, that proposed projects to save the fish may be too little, too late, and may cause more harm to the watershed than bring protections for the fish.

The river also serves as a water supply source for about 600,000 urban dwellers in Sonoma County and Marin, as well as providing a source of water for extensive grape growing activities throughout the region. This has led to more focus on improved conservation, wastewater reuse, and better management of groundwater resources, to name a few. Yet, there is still much to be done.

And there is a dark side to all this. This area of extraordinary natural beauty and extensive natural resources is also extremely fragile. It is subject to large floods, massive slides, falling trees, high water tables, water quality problems, etc. It is a concern for this fragility that has motivated RRWPC to devote our life's work over the last 37 years to the preservation of the lower Russian River watershed. This website is a testimony to that concern and represents our recent work to preserve it from the influences that would turn it into something less than what it is.

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