Headlines
New Emerging Constituents Task Force Formed
Friday, April 16, 2010
For several years, water agencies in the Santa Ana River Watershed have been using their expertise in water monitoring to evaluate water supplies to assure that water quality is safe for the public. Working with state and federal public health agencies, a long list of compounds are regularly monitored to assure that they do not pose a risk to human health. With greater and greater abilities to detect concentration of compounds at lower levels, traces of agricultural, industrial, pharmaceutical and personal care products have been detected at very low concentrations. These compounds are considered unregulated chemicals by water quality regulators and are often necessary and helpful to our quality of life. Another way to describe them is “emerging constituents”. As more and more research is conducted to determine if these compounds pose any risk, local water agencies working with state and federal agencies will be working to determine if any additional water treatment measures are necessary.
In order assure that water agencies within the Santa Ana River Watershed are on the forefront of detection, a new multi-agency task force has been formed by SAWPA to compile the water quality sampling program for emerging constituents and share these with the lead water quality regulating agency for the region, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board. The task force involves the voluntary support of the major importing and recharging water agencies such as Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, SAWPA member agencies, and several groundwater management agencies. Additionally, the task force includes all wastewater treatment agencies in the watershed who regularly conduct water quality sampling at their treatment plant outfalls. A key partner in this task force is the Santa Ana Regional Board who has provided important guidance on a characterization study for emerging constituents.
SAWPA has been asked by the Task Force to serve as the lead coordinator and administrator in compiling emerging constituents sampling data and preparing this annual report for submittal to the Regional Board. For the future, work will be expanded to define future groundwater sampling locations for emerging constituents and propose any revisions to the annual sampling program due to ongoing emerging constituents sampling results and any recommendations from a special State Board Blue Ribbon Panel of experts currently evaluating Emerging Constituents for recycled water use.
With water and wastewater agencies in the Santa Ana River Watershed working proactively and collaboratively together with water quality regulators and public health officials with the formation of this new emerging constituents program task force, the public can be reassured that their safety is our primary concern.