On golden pond
MMSA plays catch up with Lahontan.
When visitors to Mammoth Mountain Ski Area (MMSA) drink their hot toddies at the Yodler bar and restaurant, most are unaware that they are just a three minute walk from open wastewater ponds off of U.S. Forest Service Road 3S113A. In the past fifteen years, MMSA has racked up 74 vioations for the ponds, including wastewater discharge into Mammoth Creek and deficient reporting.
Four ponds, as well as a fifth “emergency pond,” process all of the waste from MMSA’s Main Lodge area under a permit from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Lahontan Region. The permit for MMSA states that “The number of people utilizing the main lodge related facilities averages 4,700 persons per day with a maximum of up to 14,000 skiers at one time. The facilities that contribute to the wastewater flow are the Mammoth Mountain Inn, Mid-Chalet, Main Lodge, Mammoth Mountain Apartments, Mammoth Mountain Chalets, Yodler Haus, and the Yodler Bar.”
In the year 2000, Lahontan revised its Waste Discharge Requirements (WDRs) with MMSA and so began the mountain’s pile of violations. Thirteen of these violations have occurred since July of 2013—Jaheil Cass of the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) said that MMSA has not submitted a self-monitoring report since March of 2013, as of press time. “Some people are surprised by this, but the bedrock of the state’s permitting program is self-compliance,” said Cass. “Permits are issued with monitoring requirements, dischargers [such as MMSA] collect that data, compare it to the requirements they have, and submit that information to us.”
Ron Cohen, Vice President of MMSA, said that he is ultimately responsible for the submission of these reports. In an e-mail to The Sheet, he said that “turnover in personnel and shifting responsibilities” is the reason for the late reporting. Cohen stated that he is currently in the process of uploading these reports to Lahontan’s computer system, and predicts that this upload will resolve the last thirteen violations. He said that about a half-dozen employees work underneath him to ensure that the system is in compliance, completing quarterly reports.
“We continued to perform all of the required sampling and monitoring throughout the period [of the violations], and in fact had several routine visits from Lahontan during the period wherein they inspected the wastewater system and found it to be performing adequately,” he said. Cohen added that “replacement (and remediation) of the ponds with a service line to MCWD [Mammoth Community Water District] is likely part of the redevelopment that would occur as a result of the Main Lodge Land Exchange.” MCWD currently handles waste from Canyon and Eagle lodges.
Ponds like MMSA’s are known as “facultative lagoons,” Cass said. Facultative lagoons pass wastewater through a primary pond in which heavy solids sink to the bottom of the lagoon while lighter particles float to the top. These ponds are sometimes aerated to speed up the process, like MMSA’s.
“We have a few [facultative lagoons] in our region…they’re usually the smaller facilities,” Cass said.
“Wastewater treatment and disposal is provided by four existing evaporation/percolation ponds, none of which are lined,” states MMSA’s permit from Lahontan. “A fifth pond has been constructed and designed only for emergency situations. The Facility collects, treats, and disposes of an average of 0.070 million gallons per day … of domestic wastewater,” said the permit from 2000. Cohen did not have an updated number for the Facility’s current volume as of press time.
According to the permit, “The disposal site is located in the Dry Creek watershed. Although no permanent ground water is believed to exist at the site, transient ground water does occur during spring runoff periods. [MMSA] installed a pipe system to divert snowmelt runoff and high ground water around the ponds.
“Dried sludge is periodically removed from the drying ponds. This sludge is then disposed at the Benton Crossing Landfill. Sludge removal is planned only as necessary.”
Cohen was not able to provide The Sheet with an estimate of how much sludge is periodically removed from the ponds, nor when these removals take place.
Mammoth’s facultative lagoons sit just a few hundred yards downhill from the snowmobile launch area at Main Lodge, announced only by signs that warn “Please Keep Out—Contaminated Water” and “Sewer Disposal Area.” There are no fences in place, and floating islands made of algae and feminine hygiene products dot the ponds, which sit below a majestic view of Mammoth Mountain. Lahontan employee Thomas Browne visited the site in October on a routine inspection. According to Cass, he “did not collect any samples but he did visual observation. One issue was there was a bunch of trash in the pond. It looked as though somebody had dumped a bunch of small shampoo bottles down the drain.” Browne’s reports from his most recent visit were not yet logged in Lahontan’s system when The Sheet inquired about them.
The system has had a few serious mishaps in the past. In June 2005, a force main leak from a cracked PVC fitting resulted in the release of 500 gallons of wastewater into Mammoth Creek, according to Lahontan’s list of violations. In December of 2000, just after the WDRs were revised, aluminum cans plugging a pipe resulted in a discharge of 100 gallons of wastewater. In recent years, dissolved oxygen levels have been listed as problems as well. Low oxygen levels can kill fish and wildlife if wastewater is discharged to surface water—say, a river or a clean pond. However, Cass said, “this pond discharges to groundwater, so it is not really an environmental problem.”
As with MMSA’s well system, aging infrastructure may often seem surprisingly outdated, but systems like these take a great deal of time to improve. U.S. Forest Service District Ranger John Regelbrugge, when speaking to The Sheet about MMSA’s snowmaking and groundwater wells, said that it is difficult to hold old infrastructure to modern standards. As Cohen said, it is MMSA’s plan to connect its wastewater treatment to MCWD once the Main Lodge Land Exchange goes through, but Cohen could not provide The Sheet with a time frame for that change. In the meantime, Cohen said, “We are doing the best we can to comply.”
