{"id":524978,"date":"2026-01-18T11:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T11:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/524978\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T11:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T11:04:50","slug":"after-the-largest-russian-river-sewage-spill-in-more-than-40-years-scrutiny-mounts-over-state-of-aging-rural-sewer-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/524978\/","title":{"rendered":"After the largest Russian River sewage spill in more than 40 years, scrutiny mounts over state of aging rural sewer plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

An estimated 5.5 million gallons of wastewater, including untreated sewage, overflowed early this month from a Guerneville treatment plant into the lower Russian River over three days, making for the largest such spill in the river in more than four decades.<\/p>\n

Despite the absence of major flooding, a series of heavy storms managed to inundate the intake system of the aging Neeley Road wastewater plant that has been linked to a series of weather-related spills over the years. The fallout led water and public health officials to issue advisories closing beaches<\/a> along more than 13 miles of the lower river and a 40-mile stretch of the Sonoma Coast.<\/p>\n

The last of those closures wouldn\u2019t be lifted until the beginning of the following workweek, after days of testing<\/a> to determine the water was safe for contact.<\/p>\n

State water quality regulators in Santa Rosa say they are looking into the spill and will determine if any enforcement action is warranted, including potentially a fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething needs to change,\u201d said Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who represents lower Russian River communities and the coast.<\/p>\n

Familiar with reports on the outdated sewer networks and septic tanks that cover her vast 5th District, Hopkins has bemoaned the high cost and glacial progress in upgrading those systems, especially in steep, forested terrain bisected by streams.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Russian River Treatment Facility operated by Sonoma Water at the end of Neeley Road near Guerneville on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. The treatment plant’s holding ponds overflowed on Tuesday, Jan. 6, causing 5.5 million gallons of wastewater, including untreated sewage, to seep into the Russian River. (Christopher Chung\/The Press Democrat)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest problem is that we have these small, old systems that were under-built in the first place and are now woefully out of date,\u201d she said in an interview after the recent spill.<\/p>\n

It came almost as a surprise during what officials described as a relative non-event on the lower river, which crested Jan. 6 less than two feet below the 32-foot flood stage in Guerneville<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got hammered on the 5th and 6th,\u201d David Royall, assistant manager of operations and management with Sonoma Water, said of the strong atmospheric river, the last in a series that hit the region starting before Christmas<\/a>. \u201cWe were bringing so much water into the system that suddenly the plant got overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LocalsLocal residents find a break in the rain to have a walk and check the level of the Russian River Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 at the Monte Rio bridge. On the following day, Jan. 6, Sonoma Water and Sonoma County health officials asked people to stay away from the river after wastewater, including untreated sewage, from the Russian River Treatment Plant on Neeley Road overflowed, sending an estimated 5.5 million gallons into the river over three days. (John Burgess \/ The Press Democrat)<\/p>\n

Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 6, the Russian River region received about 5.5 inches of rain, with the heaviest precipitation falling Monday night, Jan. 5, about 12 hours before the spill began, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rachel Kennedy and Sonoma Water officials.<\/p>\n

The spill began at 6:50 a.m. Tuesday, when, by 8 a.m. the lower river had risen more than 20 feet since New Years Day.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sonoma Water, the region\u2019s main drinking water provider and manager of the Guerneville treatment plant, is still working to determine the chain of events that led to the system failure and consequential spill. However, officials suspect it has to do with the high volume of stormwater that entered the system over a short period of time, quickly overwhelming it, Royall said.<\/p>\n

For comparison, the worst wastewater event on record for the Russian River came in 1985, amid a prolonged stretch of dry weather. After holding off for months on what were then routine releases because of the river\u2019s low level, Santa Rosa was nearly out of space in its storage ponds and let go 750 million gallons of effluent at once, an illegal dump that limited access to drinking water in the lower river region for a week.<\/p>\n

The massive discharge enraged river residents. Santa Rosa\u2019s all-powerful city manager at the time, Ken Blackman, was assigned police escorts to follow-up meetings. In political terms, the sewage release \u201cwas like dropping an atom bomb,\u201d former Santa Rosa Mayor Schuyler Jeffries told The Press Democrat in 2009<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By then, after decades of pressure to stop discharging into the river, the city\u2019s regional sewer plant was pumping most of its treated wastewater to The Geysers, on the border of Sonoma and Lake counties, where it is used to recharge the world\u2019s largest geothermal power field. The remaining share of wastewater from the Laguna Road plant goes to irrigate farmland, vineyards, parks, golf courses, school grounds and urban landscaping. For Santa Rosa, the change reversed more than 120 years of municipal discharges into the river.<\/p>\n

The Guerneville plant, however, has remained a sore spot for water infrastructure on the lower river.<\/p>\n

After a February 2014 storm caused a rapid rise in river levels, a mainline tied to the plant ruptured, spilling roughly 100,000 gallons of wastewater into the river.<\/p>\n

Five years later, an unprecedented series of atmospheric rivers slammed the region, causing the third highest flood in the river\u2019s post-dam era and the sixth worst overall flood on record<\/a>. In the course of eight days, more than 885,600 gallons of untreated wastewater, including sewage, spilled into the river and streets at three places in Guerneville in February and early March 2019.<\/p>\n

And just two years ago, a late February storm caused the lower river <\/a>to rise about 18 feet over about four days<\/a>. A subsequent power failure at the treatment plant led 277,000 gallons of untreated wastewater to spill into the waterway.<\/p>\n

System overload: \u2018It took a hit\u2019<\/p>\n

When the latest spill began Jan. 6, the Russian River, swollen and murky, was flowing at a very high rate, exceeding 30,000 cubic feet per second, or 13.4 million gallons per minute, as measured at the Hacienda Bridge in Forestville upstream of Guerneville.<\/p>\n

Although small pockets of Guerneville were partially submerged in floodwaters, including known problem areas around Fife Creek and Mill Street, the Russian River crested Tuesday evening with some room to spare: at 30.51 feet in Guerneville, it was just over the \u201cmonitor\u201d level but 1.5 feet shy of a minor flood.<\/p>\n

Still, on the streets, storm runoff streamed into sewer drains throughout the 2,700-acre service area, entering the system for the Neeley Road plant. At the outset of the period singled out by Sonoma Water, roughly 4 million gallons of daily inflow was hitting a system meant to accommodate about 710,000 gallons a day.<\/p>\n

\"MillMill Court resident Steven Kline heads out for higher ground as the stormwater begins to flood his Guerneville neighborhood Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. Kline credits the county for clearing the nearby creek and reducing the height of the flood waters. (John Burgess \/ The Press Democrat)<\/p>\n

The treatment plant itself did not flood during the storms, but the plant\u2019s two storage areas \u2014 a main basin and the emergency storage pond \u2014 overflowed. The effluent seeped about a quarter-mile south through a wooded area to the Russian River, bypassing homes.<\/p>\n

The deluge also caused the microbes within the system \u2014 the microorganisms that help break down sewage \u2014 to completely wash out, leaving the plant ill-equipped to treat the wastewater that continued to pour in.<\/p>\n

Two loads of microbes from Sonoma Valley have since been trucked to Guerneville to get the system back online.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on the right track,\u201d Royall said, \u201cbut it took a hit from all the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testing and beach closures<\/p>\n

By Wednesday, Jan. 7, as the spill reached into its second day, Sonoma Water and Sonoma County health officials were concerned enough that they issued advisories urging beachgoers to stay away from the river downstream of Guerneville and the surf stretching from the river mouth at Jenner to Gualala, 40 miles north on the border with Mendocino County.<\/p>\n

The move, with little recent parallel outside of unpopular pandemic stay-home orders that put outdoor destinations off-limits for nearly two months<\/a>, was made out of an abundance of caution. It extended through a sunny, post-storm weekend, when Highway 1 even in January can still draw legions of visitors, including hardy beachgoers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that we would not have any real-time information in terms of water quality so we decided to be aggressive in terms of closing beaches and making sure that folks weren\u2019t interacting with the water,\u201d Hopkins said.<\/p>\n