Chris Malan | Apr 6, 2015

John Madison
California State Water Resources Board
Re: Cease and Desist Order, CDO, for unlawful discharge of pollutants to the Napa River

Hello John,

I am contacting you because Living Rivers Council, LRC, and the Institute for Conservation Advocacy Research and Education, ICARE, are active stakeholders in the health of the Napa River. Our members fish, swim and recreate in the Napa River and we hold sacred our public trust rights for the commons despite long portages and stagnant pools throughout the Napa River.

We have become increasingly alarmed regarding the wastewater discharges by the City of Calistoga's Wastewater Treatment Plant on Dunaweal Ln. despite many years of recommended upgrades and mitigations by the citizens of Calistoga and the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, SFRWQCB.

The Napa River does not have adequate flows even in normal precipitation years let alone drought conditions due to:
excessive and over allocated water diversions
illegal water diversions
groundwater extraction
violations of Fish and Wildlife Codes 5937 to leave the fish in good condition by providing by-pass flows

Warm temperatures and low flow conditions are stressing the survival of the few Chinook and steelhead that manage to survive the harsh degraded aquatic habitat conditions of the Napa River.

On November 12, 2014, the SFRWQCB, issued a CDO R2-2014-0043, to the City of Calistoga for unlawfully discharging wastewater to the Napa River which is an impaired water body under the Clean Water Act for sediment, nutrients and pathogens.

We would like a copy of the ‘Report on Actions to Comply with Prohibitions’ due on March 31, 2015, which will include sampling and analysis for boron, arsenic, copper, lead, thallium and zinc as part of the antimony source identification and task required by Table 2 of the Order.

Please advise.

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