State of emergency over wastewater treatment plant in Sanger. Repairs ‘in dire need’

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Sanger is having a moment of reckoning with its wastewater treatment plant as the Fresno County city tries to correct years of disrepair and deferred maintenance — including stricter enforcement of rules with major industrial water users like Pitman Family Farms.

In a unanimous 5-0 vote, the Sanger City Council voted Thursday to declare a state of emergency for its domestic and industrial wastewater treatment plants.

This emergency declaration was necessary to expedite maintenance work that would have otherwise required competitive bidding and slowed down the process, said Sanger City Manager Nathan Olson.

He said the treatment plant was also out of compliance with several state regulations related to its wastewater discharge requirements.

“We have some repairs that are in dire need that require inspection or other work to be done so that we can fully understand the whole scope,” Olson said, addressing the City Council.

Olson requested $750,000 from the approximately $8 million in wastewater enterprise funds for the repairs. It will be used to repair the treatment plant’s digester boiler, a part of the plant that breaks down organic waste ; industrial and domestic headworks (the area where wastewater enters the treatment plant and starts removing debris ); and cross contamination issues between industrial and domestic discharge.

But the true need could be much higher. An April 2023 water rate study prepared for the city by a third-party consultant said that the industrial wastewater treatment plant needed an estimated $12 million in improvements . The study didn’t provide an estimate for domestic plant repair needs because city staff indicated at the time that it could be fully replaced in the future.

Sanger operates domestic and industrial wastewater treatment plants, which collect and treat sewage water within city limits . Over the past several years, city residents and councilmembers have raised concerns about smells emanating from the plant .

Olson asked the public to be patient during the coming months of repair work, which he said will start August.

“It will take us several years to get the plant completely rebuilt,” he said. “But there’s a lot of things we can do in the interim to keep it going.”

He also warned that residents may notice foul odors over the next few months because the sludge from the treatment plant will need to be air dried while the wastewater digester is being cleaned. (Sewage sludge is a type of biosolid that is separated from municipal wastewater during the treatment process , according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

“There’s a chance that we could have some odors permeated into the city when we’re doing this work. I don’t anticipate it, but there is a chance,” Olson said.

Mayor Frank Gonzalez also asked for patience from the community.

“All of us need to keep in mind that when you start doing heavy maintenance like this, when you uncover one thing, you might uncover three more things,” he said.

Some councilmembers and members of the public expressed frustration that repairs hadn’t been made in prior years.

Olson said there was a belief that the city would get a new plant, so the question was whether it was worth fixing the old plant.

“The new plant — when and if it does come — is years out,” he said, possibly in the next 15 years.

Some councilmembers — as well as Sanger resident and former Fresno County Board of Supervisor Judy Case McNairy— also thanked Olson for his transparency and for tackling these infrastructure problems head-on.

How does Pitman Family Farms factor into this?

The Sanger-based Pitman Family Farms processing plant and Gibson Winery are the two major industrial water users in Sanger.

In April 2023, a water and sewer rate study prepared for the city found that Sanger businesses, schools and residents were “subsidizing” water use for these industrial water users .

In 2020, the city of Sanger entered into a $1 million settlement agreement with Pitman Farms to recoup uncollected fees related to the company’s increased water use over the years .

The agreement also required Pitman Farms to comply with the wastewater pretreatment requirements of its 2012 conditional use permit. In other words, the company needs to remove pollutants from its industrial waste water before sending it to Sanger’s municipal sewage treatment plant.

As of late April, Olson told The Bee in an email statement that this is in process and design is underway.

The Bee requested a follow-up interview with Olson on Monday, but he was unavailable for comment. Former City Manager Tim Chapa has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Bee.

“I am still working with Pitman Farms” Olson told the council on Thursday. “They’re taking meetings, they have been good stewards (and) they’re making all the changes we’ve asked them to make within their facilities.”

Treatment plant out of compliance with state regulations

According to a city staff report, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board – one of nine regional boards statewide that oversees and enforces water quality and waste discharge standards – sent a letter in August 2023 to Chapa and former Public Works Director John Mulligan related to over 100 violations at Sanger’s domestic and industrial treatment plants.

Sanger City Staff Report Wa... by Melissa Montalvo

The letter was prompted by an anonymous complaint about odor issues and compliance concerns in February 2023. While the odor complaint was unsubstantiated, the water board reviewed documentation from 2020 to 2022 and found over 100 violations related to both the domestic industrial wastewater treatment plants, according to the staff report.

This board previously sent a letter to the city in 2019 raising concerns about non-compliance and asking the city for a response on how it planned to bring the plant into compliance.

According to the board’s 2023 letter, the city never responded to the water board’s 2019 letter.