Update on Nitrates in Agua Dulce

Revised 10/22/96 10:54 PM

There has been much misinformation and badly presented information in the Country Journal /community concerning the nitrate problem in Agua Dulce. The facts are as follows:

1. Agua Dulce has already been designated as a health hazard area by Los Angeles County because of high nitrates in the ground water.
2. Because of this designation, every new development of less than 5 acres is required to hook up to a sewage treatment plant and provide public water.
3. As part of the Rio Dulce project, the land has already been selected for the designated Agua Dulce Regional Sewage Treatment Plant which would be located in the Soledad Canyon area, south of Agua Dulce. The plant has been designated and the land committed even though the development has been slowed by the economy.
4. When the designated plant is built and as long as a health hazard is still determined, it will be mandatory that all persons in the Agua Dulce drainage basin connect to the sewage treatment plant.
5. The estimated cost of this will range from $30,000 to $100,000 depending upon how far away you are located from the sewer line.

Popular misconceptions and misinformation being circulated.

If a developer builds a sewage treatment plant, you don't have to pay for it.

Wrong! When a developer builds a plant and you connect to it, you pay your pro-rata share of the plant cost plus a profit to the County. After a ten year period the developer no longer gets the money, it simply goes to the County instead. You pay for the plant!

If the community "beats" Regional Water Quality, it will stop the sewers.

Wrong! Unless something is done now to reverse the existing designation of the approved Sewage Treatment Plant as the Agua Dulce Regional Treatment Plant, instead of a treatment plant specifically for a new development, then those living in the Agua Dulce area can look forward to their property values being essentially zero.

Water Supply Issues

Unfortunately, when you put in a Regional Sewage Treatment plant and drain the water from the Agua Dulce aquifer (which is spotty at best) and dumps the reclaimed water into the Santa Clara River, it is never returned to the community.

There is now virtually no recharge to the Agua Dulce aquifer because of the limited rains, except for a few places such as around Vasquez Rocks which is a part of a natural lake, and does have a good aquifer. Farther away from that area is a poor aquifer. The Septic systems do drain back into the aquifer and recharge 100% of their input back through the ground as a filter, into the aquifer.

Therefore, along with wasting from $30,000 to $100,000, you will then have to have water hauled or pay for public water to be brought in which could add another $30,000 to $40,000 dollars to the cost.

All of the above facts can be readily checked with documents. There is a CFD 6 which is controlled by the Board of Supervisors and which will build the Regional Treatment Plant and a quick check with Los Angeles County Regional Planning or Los Angeles County Health Department will indicate that Agua Dulce is tagged as having a high nitrate problem.

Possible Actions

The main issue is to get the health hazard designation for the entire community reversed.

One of the positive things in the report from the University of Riverside, was the rebuttal of Regional Water Quality's position that all of the nitrates in Agua Dulce were a result of human habitation. Those who know Spanish realize that Agua Dulce means "sweet water". Nitrates dissolved in water tastes sweet, hence it seems that the water has had nitrates for as long as people have spoken Spanish and then English in the community. And it seems the Indians preferred the water in Agua Dulce because it was the first that they considered good, sweet water after they left the deserts in their trek to the sea for trading.

With the nitrates occurring naturally, in at least 50% of the nitrates in the area as stated in the report, it would seem that sewers at best could only reduce nitrates by 50%. This is assuming that all fertilization of plants are stopped and all animals are potty trained.

As probably half of the remaining nitrates in the community are residual farming and/or animal manure. This leaves only 25% to be removed by a sewer system.

There can be no fix for naturally occurring nitrates except for elaborate filtration systems on drinking water or public water. Since the amount of drinking water used in a home is fairly minimal compared to the total water, it would seem that those few wells that are contaminated by direct connection to the surface could be rectified by utilizing reverse osmosis systems for drinking water and leaving the water solely for irrigation, landscaping and other purposes. It is just that drinking water, particularly for pregnant women, is a problem if the nitrates are above 45 milligrams per liter.

Animal waste problems can be dealt with by relocating the animal manure to other areas and providing better seals on affected wells.

The issue itself is simple, either the community gets up and gets moving to prove that Regional sewer systems aren't needed and de-certify as the regional plant in Agua Dulce or they advise all the buyers of property in Agua Dulce of the fact that they may have a $60,000 to $140,000 bill ahead of them for water and sewers.

Why it is not a problem in Acton

The plant was originally designated a the Acton-Agua Dulce Regional Treatment Plant. In Acton a number of individuals and developers got together and convinced the County that a sewer system for Acton was unneeded and that simply a restriction of all new subdivisions to one acre or greater was all that was needed to protect the water. Regional Water Quality did require developers to put in dry sewer lines to the street but remain unconnected to any system.

In Agua Dulce there is an existing standards district that prohibits division of less than 2 1/2 acres. The area around Agua Dulce is zoned essentially for two acres. It would seem the same arguments that were used in Acton with a modification of fixing specific bad wells, could be used in Agua Dulce.

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