In August 2019, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a notice of violation to the county regarding noncompliance with its Waste Discharge Requirements Order. The violations included failure to immediately notify regulators of leachate seeps and unauthorized discharges of leachate, among others.

Central Valley Water Board documents note that the county did not timely report that on the morning of Feb. 14, 2019, a mountain of waste at the landfill—known as Module 4—sustained multiple “leachate pop-outs,” leading to waste-contaminated water flowing into a nearby pond meant to capture stormwater runoff.

Water from the then-contaminated pond was pumped to a ditch that drained into the landfill’s primary stormwater sedimentation basin, which includes the aforementioned wetland preserve, according to the documents. The basin at the time also was discharging off-site into a neighboring property. The county informed the regional board that the pump was “shut down immediately.”

About two weeks later, on Feb. 26, 2019, new leachate seeps were observed at Module 4, with more of the dirty liquid flowing into the nearby stormwater pond, according to the documents. The next day, staff again observed a pump transferring water from the contaminated pond to a ditch that drained into the sedimentation basin. The county reported that the problem had been corrected.

Further investigation by the state water board’s Office of Enforcement, however, suggests that the pump transferring dirty water to the sedimentation basin and wetland preserve may not have been “immediately shut down” on Feb. 14, according to documents obtained by the CN&R.

Lindsay Wood is the new executive director of the Plumas Audubon Society. She officially began her tenure Sept. 20 of this year.

Wood is a wildlife biologist by training, and before accepting her new position she worked for the Altacal Audubon Society in Chico to promote awareness, appreciation, and protection of native birds and their habitats.

“At the time I was studying Western and Clark’s grebes on the Thermalito Afterbay,” she said, “the same two species that are found nesting at Lake Almanor and Eagle Lake,” as well as other county locations, said Wood.

Wood, originally from Oroville, decided to move out of Chico for her new appointment in August after living there for the past eight years, purchasing a property in Meadow Valley near Quincy.

As executive director for Plumas Audubon, she said her goals foremost align with work that is already underway by the organization that include preserving important bird habitat that focuses on areas with high biodiversity of avian species.

“Another goal that I have is to collaborate with regional partners to support resilient forests, including enhancing the forest environment, coordinating understory burning, and meadow restoration,” she said, “and especially to continue our research on the grebes that nest in Plumas County,” by working with Audubon California and the National Audubon Society to increase attention on their declining populations.