Prison can't fix water delivery woes soon

The Horse Thief Country Club and Tehachapi Sod Farm will continue using expensive State Water Project water while the California Correctional Institution (CCI) in Cummings Valley cleans up its waste water facility.

The two businesses had contracts to purchase most of the waste water from CCI for non-food irrigation (the only use for which the CCI waste water is approved), but delivery via the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District – already spotty because of CCI computer and staffing problems – halted July 28 after rainstorms 9 days earlier had flooded the holding ponds with mud and silt. The compromised water quality does not meet state Title 22 turbidity standards, so it's being sprayed onto the ground.

Meanwhile, Horse Thief Manager Kenn Arneke is squeezing every drop to maintain the high quality of the greens while letting other landscaping on the course go dry. The club's owner had paid $500,000 several years ago to build a four-mile pipeline for the water from CCI to the golf course at Stallion Springs. CCI has not been able to produce the agreed-upon water.

Water district Manager John Martin said he learned about the problem from his customers. "We didn't find out about it for a week."

Although the district is the delivery vehicle between CCI and the two customers, it is powerless to intervene. CCI must follow the regulations or lose its operating permit.

The storm-driven mud in the low-lying oxidation ponds killed the bacteria that is necessary to refresh the water.

Tehachapi Utility Manager Jon Curry said that CCI is working hard and has requested two 30,000 gallons truckloads of "mixed liquor" sludge that helps jump-start the bacterial action.

But, Curry said, "It's not coming back fast enough."

The state must go through a swamp of bureaucracy to get the fix in motion.

Bill Sessa, spokesperson for the state corrections system, told Forde Files, "We can use muds that have the appropriate bacteria in them to bring the water up to quality standards. But that doesn't address the problem of too little storage capacity at the moment. We will have to dredge the pond to create enough capacity to treat the water. It will take some time to get that project started, considering the time it takes to put out a bid and select a contractor. It's going to take a while to get this problem fixed so we can deliver water that meets the regional water board's standards and the limits in our operating permit.

"Right now, we can't predict when we will be able to resume water deliveries."