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The Geysers – One Year Later
After overcoming legal, engineering challenges, SR project
with Calpine works so well wastewater proves hot commodity
Monday, November 29, 2004
By MIKE McCOY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
A decade ago, predictions by Santa Rosa representatives that
the city's wastewater would one day be a hot commodity were mocked by critics,
who said officials were simply looking for someone gullible enough to take the
unwanted effluent.
Today, the once-scorned wastewater is being pumped to The
Geysers, where Calpine Corp. uses it to generate electricity that earns the
company $50 million annually.
It will be a year ago Thursday that Santa Rosa officials first
flipped the switch on a novel system in which a 40-mile pipeline carries
wastewater to The Geysers, where it is injected into the ground to maintain the
life of the world's largest geothermal energy complex.
Except for a wildfire that forced the system to shut down for
three weeks in September, "Santa Rosa's system has been virtually flawless,"
said Dennis Gilles, vice president of geothermal for Calpine, the city's partner
in the $250 million project.
Looking back, the fire was a minor inconvenience for a project
that had to overcome a series of obstacles between its selection in January 1998
and its first day of operation Dec. 2, 2003.
In the end, the engineering challenge of forcing 11 million
gallons of treated effluent a day 3,300 feet up the Mayacmas Mountains was
secondary to resolving a dozen lawsuits and the uproar of communities infuriated
by the disruption caused by construction of the project.
But the completed project continues to raise issues that
threaten more controversy.
The injection of wastewater deep within the steam field that
straddles the Sonoma-Lake county line has triggered a dramatic increase in
low-level earthquakes at The Geysers.
And projections are the four cities that are partners in the
project - Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sebastopol - will eventually
raise sewer rates and connection fees to finance system expansions to
accommodate new growth and stricter discharge regulations.
Until that time, however, The Geysers project is expected to
operate as planned, meeting both Santa Rosa's discharge requirements and
Calpine's need to keep its geothermal energy operation alive.
And it is doing so without the community rancor that was a
constant companion during the construction phase.
Dick Hafner, whose winery and 100-acre vineyard abut the
pipeline's route up Pine Flat Road, said his neighborhood's anger over the
project has dissipated.
"It's the construction that had us all growling. So far it
(the project) has been working pretty well," he said.
Calpine officials agree, saying Santa Rosa's wastewater has
breathed new life into The Geysers. By mid-2006, the company expects the
effluent will allow it to produce 85 megawatts of electricity a day, enough to
supply the residential energy needs of both Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa.
The transfusion of wastewater deep into the 450-degree rock
strata also is expected to prolong the productive life of the steam fields,
which have been on a slow decline since the daily power output at The Geysers
peaked at 2,000 megawatts in 1987. Today, it's less than half that.
Without wastewater to replenish the escaping steam, The
Geysers would eventually dry up and die.
Gilles said the addition of Santa Rosa's wastewater should
keep the steam fields economically viable for at least 30 years - the life of
the contract between Santa Rosa and Calpine - and probably double that.
Bob Austin, who heads a crew of seven responsible for
operating and maintaining Santa Rosa's end of the high-pressure transmission
line and 16 three-story-tall pumps along the route, marvels at how well the
system has worked.
"For something this large and having pumped over 3 billion
gallons so far, it's amazing how well it has operated," he said.
The highly automated system is so easy to operate that Austin
can run the entire operation from his home with his laptop computer.
Through late November, Santa Rosa had pumped almost 3.4
billion gallons of wastewater to The Geysers, a flow interrupted only by the
fire and the summer reduction to assist farmers.
In fact, the system has worked so well in putting wastewater
to productive use that Santa Rosa's storage ponds "are virtually bone dry," said
Dan Carlson, Santa Rosa's utilities projects manager.
That's good news for the Russian River, which during most
winters receives billions of gallons of the city's stored wastewater.
All of these benefits, however, have come at a price. The
average Santa Rosa household will pay $6.70 a month, or more than $2,000 over 25
years, to pay off the $205 million the city spent on its portion of the project.
The cost of the pipeline has pushed the average Santa Rosa
homeowner's sewer bill to $49.20 a month, the seventh highest in the state,
according to a survey conducted last year by Black & Veatch Corp., an
Irvine-based consulting firm.
In addition, the economic benefits for energy generation and
the environmental benefits to the Russian River have come at a cost to farmers
who rely on the city's effluent for irrigation.
Because this year's dry spring increased farmers' irrigation
needs, there was insufficient stored effluent to accommodate both farmers and
Calpine.
Calpine eventually agreed to reduce its summertime draw,
providing an extra 3 million gallons a day to farmers, but the concession wasn't
made until July and by then farmers had already suffered losses.
Kathy Reese, who owns the 500-acre Denner Ranch in western
Sonoma County, said the cutback in wastewater forced her to close her dried-up
pastureland to paying clients.
To prevent similar emergencies in the future, Calpine and the
city are nearing an agreement that would result in Calpine's taking less than 11
million gallons of wastewater a day in summer, while making up the difference in
the winter when farmers have little need for supplemental water.
The irony of the battle over wastewater isn't lost on Richard
Dowd, chairman of Santa Rosa's Board of Public Utilities.
"Five years ago it would have been blasphemy to say this, but
we don't have enough wastewater today to go around. We're at the point now we
have to dole it out to different interests," he said.
Revised growth projections for Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park
indicate another 2.2 billion gallons of wastewater a year will be generated by
2020, and Santa Rosa is already researching additional disposal programs.
Dowd expects the competition for that wastewater to be stiff,
particularly in light of indications from the state that it may not allow the
county Water Agency to draw more fresh water from the Russian River.
The shortage could set up a water fight among Calpine, which
wants more wastewater to bolster power production, farmers who have ongoing
irrigation needs, and home builders who want new effluent uses that could free
up potable water for new homes.
SR's Geysers wastewater project garners 4 awards
U.S. Energy Department among award-givers
Santa Rosa's Geysers project has been generating more than
electricity since it became operational last year.
It's already garnered four awards, some from little-known
organizations like the WaterReuse Association, all the way up to the U.S.
Department of Energy.
Mayor Sharon Wright said she's not surprised by the
recognition.
"From Sacramento to Washington, D.C., people have heard about
it," she said.
"People are always looking for projects that stand out and can
be models. It has all the wins in it. It's a win for the environment, a win for
agriculture, a win for (wastewater) reuse, a win for water conservation and a
win to create more energy," she said.
The wastewater-to-electricity project, the largest in the
world, pumps 11 million gallons a day from Santa Rosa's sewage treatment plant
west of Rohnert Park through a 40-mile-long pipeline to The Geysers steam fields
that straddle Sonoma and Lake counties.
Once there, the water is injected 1.5 miles underground to
produce steam that turns turbines and generates electricity for Calpine Corp.,
the city's partner in the jointly funded $250 million project.
The awards focus on the project's innovation and its ability
to recycle wastewater to produce electricity while transporting additional
effluent to irrigate farmlands and urban landscapes along the pipeline route.
The awards include:
2004 Helen Putnam Award: Award of Excellence in Planning and
Environmental Quality - given by the League of California Cities.
Green Power Leadership Award for Innovative Use of Renewable
Energy Technology - presented by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to Calpine in recognition of The Geysers
project.
Project of the Year - given by the WaterReuse Association, a
national organization that promotes the reclamation and reuse of wastewater and
other fouled waters.
Public Agency Environmental Responsibility Award - presented
by the California Manufacturers & Technology Association and the Industrial
Environment Association.
"The awards," said City Manager Jeff Kolin, "are symbolic of
the fact that what the city is doing with its wastewater is right at the top of
cutting edge stuff nationally."
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