officials from the city closest to the project to discuss options for
the Walnut Avenue system. That city’s water meets all state and
federal standards, and the city has sufficient supply to add new
customers. During that meeting, the city agreed that it would be
willing to serve the Walnut Avenue community if grant funding
could be secured to construct a pipeline extension.
The team studied both nontreatment and treatment solu-tions
and ultimately favored the nontreatment alternative of
connection to the nearby municipal water system through a
pipeline extension. The team’s recommendations were reviewed
by AWWA’s Technical Evaluation Committee to determine that
its report was comprehensive and particularly that connecting
to the neighboring water system was a feasible resolution. After
technical review, the team’s recommendations were presented to
EJCW and residents in the Walnut Avenue community. Based on
a review of the pros and cons of each alternative and consultation
with the EJCW, the residents supported the team’s recommen-dation
to consolidate with the neighboring city’s drinking water
system for further consideration. Collectively our team spent 139
hours on the project. Since Corona has previously done sever-al
nitrate mitigation evaluations, we had a report template from
which to work.
Where to From Here?
While the CEC team lays out a picture of each available op-tion
and tries to point the community in the direction it considers
most effective, it is ultimately up to residents to decide what to
do. Whatever the solution, the cost of implementation will fall
12 SOURCE fall 2017
to the community. According to Heather Lukacs, EJCW Central
Coast technical assistance specialist, the residents of the Walnut
Avenue community meet the state and federal criteria of severely
economically disadvantaged. EJCW may apply for Proposition
1 grant funding for the Walnut Avenue system, using the CA-NV
AWWA team’s project report as justification for the selected
mitigation option and to provide the technical basis for the grant
application amount. Other financing options that may potential-ly
be available are county funding with federal matching funds
and replacement agricultural water transfers.
Challenges
The biggest challenge of working on a CEC project can be
the community itself. In some cases, the community has lived
with the water quality or quantity issues for a long time and
doesn’t have a strong will to change. Another difficult area is
finding funding to construct the projects. In California, we are
lucky enough to have extensive grant funding available for eco-nomically
disadvantaged and severely disadvantaged systems.
However, applying for the grant funding takes a great deal of
technical savvy, and that is usually not something that these com-munities
can do for themselves. CEC teams need to be prepared
to handhold a project all the way through the funding process, or
partner with another organization that can get the project to the
finish line. S
Tarrah Henrie is Senior Scientist at Corona Environmental Consulting
and CA-NV AWWA Technical Program Director.
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