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Gonzales staff outline water, sewer operations and testing; industrial flows drive wastewater load
Summary
Public works staff described the city’s water and wastewater system operations, testing regimes, staffing and an update on permitting and pretreatment. Staff said 80% of wastewater flow at the treatment plant comes from three large industrial users and that the city is preparing updated sewer ordinances and pretreatment requirements.
City public works staff briefed the Gonzales City Council on Jan. 21 about the operations, testing and permitting that support the city’s water and sewer systems and described staff training, sampling schedules and infrastructure capacity concerns.
A city staff member introduced the presentation and said the city operates a full‑service water and sewer system fed by four groundwater wells with storage tanks totaling about 7,000,000 gallons. “We are absolutely a full‑service city,” the presenter said, noting the system’s single pressure zone and that a second pressure zone would be considered as the city expands east.
Public Works Supervisor Tiffany Twisselman summarized water‑quality monitoring and daily operations. “Our testing is done by the county health department. They come down weekly. They do all our testing weekly, monthly, biannually, and annually,” Twisselman said. She said the city performs triannual lead and copper testing and produced the EPA‑required lead and copper inventory; the city reported the latest inventory results back to staff and sent letters to the community as required.
Twisselman described daily rounds to check chlorine residuals, well site inspections, valve exercising and line flushing for low‑flow dead ends. She noted meter‑register replacement work is ongoing after older registers began to fail; the city replaces registers or meter heads intermittently to avoid manual reads of hundreds of meters.
On wastewater, staff said the collection system includes five lift stations, force mains and the wastewater treatment plant. “About 80% of the flow to our wastewater treatment plant comes from the big three in the industrial facility section,” Twisselman said; the city is preparing an updated sewer ordinance and pretreatment requirements tied to the plant’s permit with the regional board.
Twisselman said the Regional Water Quality Control Board recently placed the plant under a new general permit, which increases reporting requirements. The city also monitors for PFAS in wastewater, she said, and indicated that drinking‑water PFAS testing returned near‑non‑detect results and that the regional board has granted a PFAS waiver for drinking water at this time.
Staff described training partnerships—Monterey Bay Water Works, the California Water Environment Association and regional public‑works groups—and said the reporting and regulatory workload has risen. The city currently has one Grade‑2 wastewater operator and additional operators in training, with staff pushing certifications to ensure operator coverage.
Council members and staff discussed enforcement and public reporting; no formal action or vote resulted from the presentation. The public works team said the city will continue regular reporting to the council and that updates will appear in future packets and during periodic presentations.
