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.