Headlines
Declaration of Conformance - Approved!!!
Friday, April 16, 2010
SAWPA is pleased to announce that through a multi-year collaboration among water and wastewater agencies throughout the watershed and the Regional Board staff, a Declaration of Conformance to the State Recycled Water Policy was approved by the Regional Board on March 18, 2010. This Declaration document serves an important role in confirming to the State Board that the following three primary requirements specified in the State Recycled Water Policy are met:
- Develop and enact a Salt and Nutrient Management Plan through a locally-driven and controlled collaborative process.
- Establish an appropriate water quality monitoring program to implement the Salt and Nutrient Management Plan.
- Streamline the permitting process to facilitate increased use of recycled water wherever possible and especially for landscape irrigation projects.
For stakeholders within the watershed, the document represents years of hard work in defining water recycling guidance that will assist project proponents of future water recycling projects in streamlining the process for obtaining permits from the State to proceed with implementation. In the past, though the State of California has been a strong advocate of water recycling in general, there were many provisions regarding water recycling defined in the California Water Code that were somewhat unclear and subject to interpretation by each Regional Board. Consequently, back in 1996 a multi-agency task force composed of water, wastewater, and groundwater management agencies was formed by SAWPA to work with the Regional Board staff on a Nitrogen TDS Basin Plan and a guidance document for water recycling. The Task Force hired Tim Moore of Risk Sciences to serve as the lead consultant for the water recycling guidance document and Wildermuth Environment Inc. for technical work associated with the Salt and Nutrient Management Plan.
By 2004, a detailed basin plan amendment for the Nitrogen and TDS revisions was adopted. However, with a new State Board water recycling policy under works, the task force guidance document was placed on hold until the State Board Water Recycling Policy was adopted. Once the State Board passed their new statewide water recycling policy in early 2009, the task force continued working closely with the Regional Board to prepare a Declaration of Conformance that combined the major tenets of the water recycling guidance document developed by the Task Force along with declarations that the Santa Ana Regional Board had met the major requirements of the State Board Water Recycling Policy. The final Declaration of Conformance serves as a testament of the continued success of the collaborative approach among SAWPA, watershed stakeholders and the Regional Board.