WATER SETTLEMENT TO BE PRESENTED TO PUBLIC WORKSHOP SESSIONS TO BE ON $4 MILLION ACCORD BETWEEN STATE, SANITATION DISTRICTS.

Byline: JIM SKEEN

Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- State water regulators will hold a pair of workshops Wednesday at the Palmdale Water District to brief the public on a proposed $4 million settlement between the state and the sanitation districts serving Palmdale and Lancaster.

Sessions will be held at 3 and 7 p.m., at 2029 E. Ave. Q.

Under terms of the proposal, the Los Angeles County sanitation districts in Palmdale and Lancaster would pay $4 million to the state, with the bulk of the settlement -- $3.8 million -- going toward a major recycled-water distribution system in the Antelope Valley.

The first $152,000 will go to the State Water Resources Control Board's Waste Discharge Permit Fund and $48,000 will go to the California Department of Justice for consultant costs associated with representing the state water boards.

At this workshop, the Lahontan Water Board staff will describe the various proposed orders and the supplemental environmental project and answer questions.

At issue are two cease-and-desist orders made by Lahontan: one to the district in Lancaster to keep sewage off Edwards Air Force Base land and another to the district serving Palmdale to clean up nitrates in groundwater.

In 2004, Lahontan issued a cease-and-desist order to the Lancaster district to stop treated sewage from spilling into Rosamond Dry Lake at Edwards by fall 2008.

At the same time, Lahontan issued a cease-and-desist order to the sanitation district serving Palmdale, directing that it stop nitrate discharges into groundwater by fall 2009.

In response to the orders and to what officials saw as a pressing need to handle growth, both districts developed 20-year plans that called for constructing new tertiary treatment plants -- whose output would be safe for human contact -- and storage ponds.

The sanitation districts, however, filed lawsuits protesting the timetables established in the orders as unreasonably short to make the necessary improvements.

A decision on the settlement is scheduled to be made at the board's May 23-24 meeting.

The Lahontan Water Board members will not be attending the workshops.

Copies of the settlement and proposed orders can be obtained either by calling the Lahontan Water Board offices in Tahoe at [phone] or in Victorville at [phone] or on the Internet at: www.waterboards.ca.gov/lahontan/acl_23feb07.html.

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