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Municipal Beat

ALAMEDA'S ANTI-RUNOFF CAMPAIGN

You might expect an agency like the Alameda County Urban Runoff Clean Water Program to toil along in relative obscurity. But these days its name is on billboards, bus signs, newspaper ads, radio and television.

Alameda's Sharon Gosselin says her agency is trying to educate people who aren't aware they're polluting the Bay when they pour unwanted liquids down storm drains, drive their cars or spray pesticides on their gardens.

The billboards show a couple running along a beach. The water is a bright fuchsia color. "That must be the paint you dumped down the storm drain," one of them remarks. Monthly press releases from the program deal with seasonal topics. The December one, for example, tells people who are winterizing their cars how to dispose of used oil and antifreeze.

The $200,000 campaign is part of Alameda's compliance with new federal urban stormwater control regulations. Gosselin says the response has been good, especially from radio stations, which have invited her to appear on numerous talk shows.

Most folks, Gosselin believes, are happy to find out how they can help keep the Bay pollution free. "Without a whole lot of effort, people can make a big difference," she says. Contact: Sharon Gosselin (510)670-6547

CAN CITIES WATER FARMS?

A new $2 million, two-year study will examine the economic and environmental effects of transporting wastewater from Bay Area cities back to the Delta. The study, funded by the Bureau of Reclamation and Bay Area water and wastewater agencies, implements one of the action items in the Estuary Project's Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP).

According to the CCMP, an estimated 400,000 acre feet a year of treated urban wastewater could be reused to irrigate farms or repel salinity intrusion into the Delta (tides bring salt water farther up river when freshwater outflows are low). "We'll be looking at every drop produced in the Bay Area," says Michelle Plà of the S.F. Department of Public Works. Plà says that a number of issues need to be examined, including the quality and quantity of the reclaimed water, how it will be blended with Delta sources and the complex problem of how to fairly allocate the costs among the urban and agricultural beneficiaries of the project. "This study will let us know if there are any fatal flaws in the concept," she says.

If researchers find that the idea is feasible, the next step will be to draw up an environmental impact statement. Plà says it would cost "several billion" dollars to construct the facilities needed to move the water to the Central Valley. Contact: Michelle Plà (415)554-8228

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