WATSONVILLE >> An agreement to implement a six-month pilot program that would develop and test an alternative sanitation service will go before the Watsonville City Council at its Tuesday meeting.

According to a staff report by Public Works Director Courtney Lindberg and Assistant Public Works Director Danielle Green, Santa Cruz County has partnered with the nonprofit GiveLove and Ryan Smith Consulting to create a proof of concept for a container-based composting research program aimed at developing a new sanitation services model that can be incorporated into emergency preparedness, response, and recovery plans. The report emphasized that the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires and the 2023 Pajaro River levee breach highlighted a need to go beyond on-site wastewater treatment plants.

The method being spotlighted is container-based sanitation, which does not require water to convey bodily waste and instead consist of toilets with removable containers that are then collected and transported to wastewater treatment plants.

“It follows the same steps of what the World Health Organization calls the sanitation service chain: containment, collection, transportation, treatment, and final reuse or disposal of end products,” Lindberg and Green wrote. “These are the same steps wastewater systems use, with the difference being that CBS systems do not use water and underground pipes as a means of conveyance, and a simple composting site is required for treatment instead of a wastewater treatment facility.”

Lindberg and Green wrote that the vulnerability of the Watsonville Wastewater Treatment Plant became apparent after last year’s atmospheric rivers and flooding.

“Attention at the local, regional, and State level was paid to the Pajaro River flooding and the potential for the levee along the treatment facility’s perimeter to breach, over-top, or otherwise experience some other mode of failure,” they wrote. “Flooding of this critical infrastructure would result in a catastrophic failure of equipment and several months of work to restore adequate wastewater pumping and treatment operations. During this time, Watsonville and communities in the Pajaro Valley would experience an immediate public health crisis and long lasting negative environmental consequences.”

Lindberg and Green wrote that the Wastewater Treatment Plant was an ideal location for the pilot project because composting at the site was categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act due to the facility having a coastal conditional land use permit for the land use and project type. The project would also be considered an existing use on a publicly owned property. Because the composting would take place at the plant’s biosolids drying area, a Regional Water Quality Control Board waste discharge requirement would not be required.

Moreover, Lindberg and Green wrote that the Monterey Air Resources District confirmed that an air permit project is not required for the pilot project due to its small size. The footprint of the project is 1,000 square feet, will require minimum access and maintenance from Ryan Smith Consulting and would not utilize any city staff time. Ryan Smith Consulting will provide a technical report upon the six-month conclusion of the program, which will be used to inform an emergency preparedness, response and recovery sanitation implementation plan.

This item is on the consent agenda, which means it will be approved in one motion alongside other items considered routine unless pulled for further discussion by a council member or member of the public.

In other business, Environmental Education Coordinator Tami Stolzenthaler will provide a report on the city’s waste reduction efforts.The council will meet publicly at 5 p.m. Tuesday on the top floor of the Watsonville City Council Chambers, 275 Main St. A closed session to discuss legal matters will precede the regular meeting at 4:30.