Project Overview

The Calaveras County Water District (District) owns and operates the Jenny Lind Water Treatment Plant (Jenny Lind Plant) near Valley Springs, California (Figure 1, Regional Vicinity). The plant has a capacity of 6.0 million gallons a day (MGD) and serves approximately 11,250 customers. Raw water supplied from New Hogan reservoir and downstream of the dam is withdrawn through an infiltration gallery in the riverbed. The existing water plant processes include raw water pumps, ozone/ozonation, absorption clarifiers, gravity filters, and disinfection with sodium hypochlorite. Recently, a 70,868-acre wildfire (Butte Fire) occurred in Calaveras and Amador counties, and approximately 50% of the burned area is in the watershed for New Hogan reservoir and upstream of the treatment plant. Due to the local soil conditions, runoff from the burned area will have a major impact on raw water quality and the District’s ability to produce drinking water.

To address impacts to water quality, the District proposes to upgrade the Jenny Lind plant with a packaged pretreatment system (plant), which consists of pre-engineered/pre-manufactured treatment units that will be fabricated off-site and shipped to the project site for final installation (proposed project). The District submitted an application and obtained funding through the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal-OES) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for the proposed project. As such, the proposed project requires environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to determine whether the proposed project may have significant adverse effects on the environment. This document encompasses a CEQA Initial Study/Negative Declaration (IS/ND); a separate NEPA Environmental Assessment (EA) has been completed by FEMA as the federal lead agency.