The Tuesday, September 24, 2013, Successor Agency to the Richmond Community Redevelopment Agency/Richmond City Council Special Agenda/ Packet is on the web.  Follow the link to view: http://sireweb.ci.richmond.ca.us/sirepub/meet.aspx

Tomorrow’s meeting is largely devoted to presentations and catch-up items deferred from previous meetings.

A report about the feasibility of transferring sewage from Richmond’s wastewater plant to EBMUD will disappoint some who saw that as the panacea to various problems over the last few years:

The conclusions from the initial evaluation and hydraulic modeling may be summarized as follows:

• For the interim period, the modeling showed that existing EBMUD facilities could accommodate Richmond flows with only minor improvements. However, the analysis of interim wastewater deliveries from Richmond identified significant impacts to Point Isabel Wet Weather Facility (PI-WWF) discharges.

• Both the volume and duration of wet weather discharges from the facility would increase significantly, which could prove challenging to harmonize with the regulatory status of WWF discharges. In addition, the modeling showed that the volume of wet weather storage needed would be greater than the volume estimated in the Carollo Report; the effects of back-to-back storms would be more significant than the Richmond design storm, and would necessitate larger volumes of storage.

• The long-term scenario incorporating infiltration/inflow (I/I) reduction and Richmond storage appears to be infeasible due to the large amount of storage required and long retention times. Preventing wet weather facility discharges in the long-term scenario could require as much as 195 MG of storage, which would be cost prohibitive to construct.

• The initial modeling results suggest that the design concept may not be feasible. The interim impacts on Point Isabel discharges are not likely to be approved by regulators, and the long-term scenario would require construction of costly wet weather storage.

• Other alternatives may be more feasible, both from a regulatory and cost perspective. One alternative is to continue operation of the Richmond wastewater plant as a full secondary treatment plant, but with solids conveyed to the District’s MWWTP for treatment. Another alternative would be to construct a forcemain to convey raw wastewater flows to a point in the District’s system downstream of the PI WWF that has more capacity for these flows.

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