Sean McNeal, deputy director of environmental services for Santa Rosa Water, told the Board of Public Utilities on Oct. 2 that the Laguna Treatment Plant’s trucked-waste program has grown rapidly and the utility has added monitoring, fee changes and operational controls to protect the treatment plant.

The program began by accepting landfill leachate and gray water and expanded after the city adopted a trucked-waste master plan and a revised fee schedule, McNeal said. “We conducted a trucked waste master plan to take a look at the, the waste coming to us and evaluate to make sure that we're collecting the appropriate fees based on the costs,” he said.

City managers said the growth matters because it now produces significant revenue but also creates operational stress on the plant and requires more oversight and equipment maintenance. Santa Rosa’s calendar-year tipping fees rose from roughly $2,000,000 in 2018 to more than $4,000,000 in 2023–2024, McNeal said, and the city has adjusted fees to reflect costs and the energy offsets from high-strength wastes.

McNeal described program changes introduced in recent years: a high-strength waste receiving facility (built in early 2016), cameras at discharge locations, a permit requirement for haulers, a truck/vehicle scan-in system linked to manifests for some waste types, and additional sample testing. “We added cameras to monitor the discharge locations to make sure that we had backup should, the truckers not be doing what they're supposed to be doing,” McNeal said.

Under the high-strength waste arrangement, materials with higher solids bypass parts of the plant and feed anaerobic digesters; the methane produced is used to generate electricity and heat, McNeal said. He also noted that the city allows a range of wastes — including septic, chemical toilets, winery wastewater and certain remediation and construction dewatering flows — but that septic is charged at the highest rate (13¢ per gallon) and strength-based charges are applied to other wastes (low about 2.4¢/gal; medium about 4.2–4.6¢/gal, per the presentation).

Rapid growth has brought problems the city has had to manage. McNeal said the program issued 18 notices of violation in 2022–23 and that three administrative orders led to three permits being suspended or terminated because of driver activity. “By doing this oversight in 2022 and '23, doing a lot more sampling, we got a lot more compliance last year,” he said.

Board members pressed staff on operational details and cost allocation. Board member Mullen asked whether program costs are borne by users or ratepayers. Deputy director McNeal said the rate study incorporated permit, staffing and infrastructure costs and the energy offset from high-strength waste, so the fee structure was designed to cover those costs: “all of those things were considered into the costs of the service, and generated the rate structure from that.”

McNeal and Director Burke described seasonal and operational constraints that limit when the plant can accept trucked waste: heavy rain, construction shutdowns (including work on the UV project and restricted gate access) and capacity limitations on wet-weather days. When the plant must close, staff notify haulers via phone, email and text; some haulers hold loads, while others travel to East Bay Municipal Utility District’s facilities, McNeal said.

To handle program growth the department secured budget authority to hire a dedicated trucked-waste coordinator; McNeal said interviews will be held in coming weeks. He also described regional outreach: the city co-hosted an inaugural meeting for trucked-waste program representatives with East Bay MUD, attended by 35 people from utilities as far as Modesto and Sacramento, to share operations and develop coordination.

Board members raised concerns about monitoring and on-site oversight. McNeal said the city uses an “honor system plus” approach: haulers scan in, select permitted waste types, and the city uses cameras and additional sampling to verify loads. He said the program is not proposing a full-time person to physically check every load but expects the new coordinator to strengthen compliance and communication.

The presentation closed with staff emphasizing cross-department support — operations, maintenance, lab, IT and environmental compliance — and the department’s plan to continue reviewing the fee assumptions and capacity limits as the program evolves.

The presentation was informational; no board motion or formal policy change was recorded during the meeting.