Los Angeles County sends half a million tons of sewage sludge to Tulare Lake every year. Will it contaminate rising floodwaters?
Here at the western edge of the Tulare Lake Basin dwells a smelly industrial site the size of 150 football fields. Roughly eight times a day, its operations are replenished with a truckload of human waste from the residents of Los Angeles County.
Area water managers and government officials acknowledge that if Tulare Lake Compost were flooded, the resulting contamination could trickle into groundwater and contaminate streams and rivers throughout the region. An even bigger risk comes from scores of waste lagoons at nearby chicken and dairy ranches that dot the valley floor.
“If floodwaters carrying cow waste arrive near vulnerable communities, it is very possible that domestic wells are contaminated with such pathogens as. That can make water immediately toxic unless their water system has a disinfection treatment,” he said. “Any water that falls on the site is captured and stays on site,” he said. Floods of the 1960s and ‘70s “didn’t come anywhere near” the facility or the surrounding acres of farmland, he said. Still, the facility is developing a flood protection plan, ordering sandbags and identifying critical infrastructure, Glass said, “since nobody knows what the melting of the snowpack is going to entail.”A California town is engulfed in floodwater, but residents fear what will happen if they flee.
But a series of winter storms has already started refilling the lake, which straddles Kings and Tulare counties, causing residents to evacuate and flooding croplands and ranches.A vehicle braves the flooded Garces Highway as the Tulare Lake Basin continues to fill with water.“We’re actively preplanning our [California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection] crews along with our law enforcement,” said Carrie Montero, public information officer for Tulare County.
He said, in any case, the compost is cooked at a high temperature to kill pathogens such as bacteria and viruses.
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