Water Quality Working Group

**[Lake Tahoe Interagency Monitoring Program (LTIMP)]{.underline}**

## Subcommittee

**Next LTIMP Meeting:**

**[WEDNESDAY April 2, 2003]{.underline}**

**@ [9:00 am to 12:00 pm]{.underline}**

[@ South Lake Tahoe City Council Chambers]{.underline}

# Meeting Minutes -- March 5, 2003

***[In Attendance (29 --21) affiliations):]{.underline}***

Rita Whitney, TRPA\* Alan Heyvaert, TRG\*

Steve Patterson, EDAW Tim Rowe, USGS\*

Philip Bachand, WWR Sue Norman, USFS

Michelle Kramer, WetLAB\* Jim Heist, CDS

Kip Allander, USGS Jennifer Quickel, ELDOT

Kim Carr, CTC Roger James, WRM

Mark Palmer, High Sierra Lab/TRG Amardeep Singh, CDS

Jason Kuchnicki, NDEP\* Carol Schupbach, ENTRIX

John Reuter, TRG Jim Thomas, DRI

Dan Sussman, League Chad Paul, NTCD

Robert Erlich, Lahontan Bruce Warden, Lahontan

Lou Regenmorteric, CDM Mary Fiore-Wagner, Lahontan

Mahmood Azad, WRC Eric Strecker, Geosyntec

Russ Wigert, CSLT Jeff Hauser, Ecologic

Rob Kuczynski, NDEP Robin Eppard, RCI

John Johnston, CSUS Dipen Patel, CSUS

Stefan Achuster, CDM

> \* - Attended previous meeting

The meeting was called to order, introductions were made, and the agenda
was reviewed, with the Round Robin moving to the end.

**Round Robin---The TRPA will be moving to a new office building on
March 24, at 128 Market Street on lower Kingsbury Grade.** Phones and
computers (emails) will be shut down beginning March 19-24. The new
building will have several new conference rooms that could be used by
the LTIMP GROUP. We will take a vote next meeting, any opinions either
way can be sent to the chair, Rita.

### CUTREM pilot project on Chemical Dosing---Phil Bachand This presentation by Phil is a collaborative effort by several parties, including TRG, UCD CEE, and USGS Sacramento, with funding through Caltrans and the USFS and sponsoring from the City of South Lake Tahoe. It is one of three studies in the basin to evaluate chemically enhanced BMPs for Tahoe. Placer County has an Absorption study with TRG and the Caltrans Storm water Treatment Pilot Program, the second presentation. The overall goal of this study is to assess the feasibility of chemical coagulants for reducing phosphorus and fine particle loading from stormwater. To date, this study has focused on narrowing the list of coagulants to the number considered most promising for implementation at Lake Tahoe. Currently, this study has involved a literature review of various coagulants and technologies proceeded by exploratory bench testing in a laboratory setting. Some evaluation criteria included what minimum dosing levels were effective at phosphorus and fine particle removal, with reasonable O&M costs, and no violations for iron standards. The two methods used to initially evaluate chemicals are charge titration tests and coagulation (jar) tests. Charge titration tests determine chemical dosing levels that efficiently reduced neutralized (destabilized) particles in solution and thus results in reduced turbidity levels. The Coagulant (jar) tests have been used to determine phosphorus and turbidity levels that can be achieved at the charge neutralization dosing level. From these exploratory experiments, several coagulants have been selected for futhur testing and applications for larger scales. This will be the focus of the next laboratory testing, followed by eco-toxicity assessment, site selection and design on an actual project. Phil had a handout of the PowerPoint; if anyone would like a copy, please contact Phil at <phil@swampthing.org> or 530-758-1336 

**Caltrans Small Scale Pilot Tahoe Basin---Kevin Murphy, CSUS-OWP** The
Caltrans **small**-scale pilot project is part of the Statewide
Monitoring and Treatment Program to identify BMP effectiveness and
alternate approaches to the treatment of Storm water. It began like
Phil's with a literature search, bench and jar testing, resulting in the
selection of PASS-C as the coagulant selected for treatment testing. The
next phase of the project was extensive testing of this in basically two
modes, Passive and mechanized treatment. Water from 6 separate storm
events was collected in 6500-gallon containers for the testing. The
passive treatment tested filter media and sedimentation with and without
chemical treatment. The four filters tested were activated aumnia,
zeolite, well-sorted fine sand, and coarse sand. The poorest removal of
nutrients was in the coarse sand and zeolite, with activated alumnia
combined with fine sand filtration performing better. The results from
the passive stage still did not achieve the discharge standards.

The high technology systems combined a chemical treatment followed by
Actiflo® filtration and an ion exchange system. Many of the coagulants
performed well in these tests, but the top rated was PASS-C combined
with filtration and sedimentation. Overall testing showed the nitrogen
removal fell behind phosphorus even in the filtration systems. There
will be continued testing at the pilot levels as well as review of
potential project sites for implementation on the large scale.

April agenda is open for topics and discussion, please send any input to
Rita, there is a good possibility that it will be cancelled due to
TRPA's move, as contact with the Chairperson will be difficult in the
next few weeks!