California Code of Regulations › Title 27 - Environmental Protection › Division 2 - Solid Waste › Subdivision 1 - Consolidated Regulations for Treatment, Storage, Processing or Disposal of Solid Waste › Chapter 7 - Special Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Units › Subchapter 6 - Solar Evaporators › Article 1 - Solar Evaporator Regulations › Section 22920 - SWRCB - Solar Evaporator Design Requirements

Current through Register 2024 Notice Reg. No. 28, July 12, 2024
(a)
						Registered Professionals -- Solar evaporators shall be designed by a registered
						civil or agricultural engineer, or a registered geologist or certified
						engineering geologist.
(b) Flooding
						-- A solar evaporator shall be located outside the 100-year floodplain, or
						shall be constructed with protective berms/levees sufficient to protect the
						solar evaporator from overflow and inundation by 100-year floodwaters, or shall
						be elevated above the maximum elevation of a 100-year flood.
(c) Protection of Groundwater Quality --
						Solar evaporators shall be immediately underlain by at least 1 meter of soil
						with a hydraulic conductivity of not more than 1 x 10-6 cm/sec above the zone
						of shallow groundwater at any time during the year. The surface of the solar
						evaporator shall be a minimum of five-feet (5 ft.) above the highest
						anticipated elevation of underlying groundwater. A solar evaporator may be
						constructed on a site with soils that do not meet the above requirement, with
						subsurface tile drainage under or directly adjacent to the solar evaporator, a
						liner, or other engineered alternative, sufficient to provide assurance of the
						equivalent level of groundwater quality protection of the above soil
						requirement.
(d) Discharge to the
						Facility -- All discharge to the solar evaporator shall be agricultural
						drainage water collected from the IFDM system or recirculated from the solar
						evaporator as a component of the IFDM system. No agricultural drainage water
						from the IFDM system or the solar evaporator may be discharged outside the
						boundaries of the solar evaporator
(e) Facility Size -- The area of land that
						makes up the solar evaporator may not exceed 2 percent of the area of land that
						is managed by the IFDM system.
(f)
						Means of Discharge to the Facility -- Discharge of agricultural drainage water
						from the IFDM system to the solar evaporator shall be by timed sprinklers or
						other equipment that allows the discharge rate to be set and adjusted as
						necessary to avoid standing water in the solar evaporator, outside a water
						catchment basin. The sprinklers shall be equipped with screens or shields or
						other devices as necessary to prevent the drift of agricultural drainage water
						spray outside the boundaries of the solar evaporator.
(g) Water Catchment Basin -- A water
						catchment basin may be required:
(1) As a
						component of a solar evaporator if standing water would otherwise occur within
						the solar evaporator under reasonably foreseeable operating conditions,
						or
(2) If a solar evaporator is
						constructed with a liner. In this case, a water catchment basin shall be
						designed with the capacity to contain the maximum volume of water that the
						solar evaporator would collect under reasonably forseeable operating
						conditions. A water catchment basin is not required for a solar evaporator that
						does not have a liner, if it is demonstrated that standing water will not occur
						under reasonably foreseeable operating conditions.