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Water board may consider port fine

Published in the Stockton Record on 01/29/05

Water board may consider port fine

By Hank Shaw - Record Staff Writer
Published Saturday, January 29, 2005

RANCHO CORDOVA -- After months of delays and excuses from the Port of Stockton over its sale of toxic dredge spoils to state agencies and area construction firms, the patience of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has worn thin.

Seven months after it demanded a full accounting of the sale of nearly 300,000 cubic yards of dredged soil loaded with heavy metals -- including 55,000 cubic yards of the stuff to shore up the Trapper Slough levee last summer -- the water board received the documents it's been asking for only this week.

Port officials say they've done nothing wrong. Port Director Richard Aschieris said his agency has done some "soul searching," and "now we've come back with what I feel is a more positive direction," he said.

Board Chairman Richard Schneider said he's tired of the delays and wants to determine if the board should fine the port for violating several of the permits it obtained to dredge the soil from the Stockton Deep Water Channel

"We've extended a little trust, they didn't get their act together, and we still have problems," Schneider said. "This has been an ongoing issue. We have to have compliance."

The soil in question is not harmful to people, but it contains high amounts of metals, such as copper and zinc, that can be lethal to aquatic life. Experts say putting it along a levee, which has happened twice now, is practically dumping the stuff into the Delta -- through which about 80 percent of California's migratory fish pass.

Left untouched at the bottom of the San Joaquin River, the dirt will not harm anything. But once it's dredged, agitation can leach the metals into the water and kill juvenile fish and invertebrates, such as shrimp.

The port needs to sell the dirt, however, because it is running out of places to pile it up, and it wants to expand its operations on Rough and Ready Island this year. Port officials say 99 percent of the soil sold for construction projects around Northern California was put safely underneath concrete slabs.

Also, the 1,000-mile network of Delta levees is weakening, and dredged soil is the cheapest and easiest material with which to shore them up. That's why the state Department of Water Resources spent $19,000 to buy the stuff from the port last summer; it used it to raise the Trapper Slough levee along Highway 4 after the Jones Tract levee broke.

A DWR spokesman said Friday that repair work on Trapper Slough should be finished by the end of February, at a cost of $500,000. The department is asking the port to reimburse it.

Water board officials said they will hold a workshop next month to discuss letting the port sell the soil legally because all sides realize its importance in maintaining the Delta levees. If those levees collapse, it would be a disaster not only for the farmers behind them, but to the entire state. More than 20 million Californians depend at least in part on the Delta for their drinking water.

Regardless of future need, however, water board officials say the port is still not complying with all its permits and has not yet cleaned up its share of the mess.

For example, the port was supposed to add lime to the contaminated soil to lessen its acidity. The more acidic the dirt, the more likely that metals will leach out. Aschieris said the port would add lime once the rains ended in spring.

All this delay has Bill Jennings of the environmental group DeltaKeeper frustrated.

"I think they need to be penalized as a deterrent and as a reminder to themselves," Jennings said. "The cost of noncompliance ought to be higher than the cost of compliance."
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* To reach Capitol Bureau Chief Hank Shaw, phone (916) 441-4078 or e-mail sacto@recordnet.com

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