Officials in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., have huge impact on water bills

Some people think that drinking water just comes from some river, lake or well, and all that's done is to put in a little chlorine and pipe it to everybody's home. We think the water from our shower or toilet goes down the drain, gets some disinfection and sent to the ocean or a river.

But there are many laws and regulations- federal, state and local- that govern how we operate the delivery of potable water to you and how we process and reat wastewater after you use it.

Recently I attended a seminar in which we discussed more than 85 new state and federal bills and changes to existing laws that water agencies and wastewater treatment plants operate under.

Some of the bills working their way through the state and federal legislatures are minor changes to our operations, some we fully support and others we suggested to our legislators.

One new regulation now working its way through the federal legislature is HR 2421, a revision to the clean water act of 1972. This bill in its present form will allow the California Regional Quality Control Board, through its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, to require treatment plants to treat urban storm runoff. It deals with the water that now runs down the street and into the storm drains, and requires that it be diverted  from going straight to the ocean and instead treated in our treatment plants to the same specifications that wastewater is treated.

In some cases, treatment plants will have to expand at great cost. This of course will increase the cost of your sanitation bills.

Through cooperative efforts with other sanitation districts, we're working with our elected representatives in Washington and Sacramento to modify this and other bills to accomplish the concept of these bills in a more economical way and to defeat pending legislation that adversely affects sanitation and water districts.

Bringing you clean drinking water and processing wastewater to the highest standards at the lowest cost to you, our customers, is our prime directive. Ronald Stark Oak Park Stark is chair of Triunfo Sanitation District.