BARSTOW — The Barstow City Council agreed to spend $1.7 million on the first phase of improvements to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.
The Council voted unanimously at its July 7 meeting to approve the design plan for the improvements and to fund it.

The first round of improvements to the plant are scheduled for completion at the end of May 2009, in time to meet a July 30, 2009 deadline set by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which ordered the city to stop the plant from discharging nitrates into the groundwater. If the city misses the deadline, the water board could fine the city $1,000 to $10,000 for each day it continues to produce excess nitrates.

Nitrates, when consumed in large amounts, can present a health hazard, particularly to infants.

The city’s goal is to get nitrates to a level of less than 10 milligrams per liter, said Mark Murphy, senior analyst for the project. The average nitrate level in the treated wasted water for the first four months of 2008 was 11.4 milligrams per liter, according to data included in a progress report prepared by engineering firm So & Associates Engineers, Inc.

The first portion of the plant improvements will involve installing new equipment in the aeration basins — tanks in which microbes eat away pollution from the wastewater — to improve their efficiency. Murphy said the current system needs an upgrade but not a major overhaul.

“It’s operating the way it was designed to, but the technology is 40 years old,” he said.

The next step will be to install two screens that will filter out solid matter from the wastewater before it gets to the aeration basins. That portion of the project, which Murphy said is not essential to meet Lahontan’s standards by July 2009, is slated for completion in October 2009.

In its progress report, So & Associates compared the plan approved by the city council with a second alternative that would have included another filtering system as well as the screens. That alternative was estimated to cost between about $2.5 and $2.7 million. The engineering firm recommended that the city adopt the less-elaborate $1.7 million plan, based on cost effectiveness and speed of implementation.

A representative from So & Associates would not speak with the Desert Dispatch.

Patrice Copeland, senior engineering geologist with Lahontan, said the water board is still evaluating the final compliance plan submitted by the city in April. She declined to comment on the city’s plan until the water board completes its evaluation and submits comments to the city, which she said Lahontan hopes to do by the end of the month.

Although the city has not received Lahontan’s blessing yet, Murphy said he is confident that the plan approved by the City Council will meet the water board’s standards.

“It’s based on a sound engineering plan with common practices in the profession,” he said.

The city plans to begin taking construction bids for the first phase of improvements in mid-August.

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