Oakley, California

Oakley’s sewer rule is an Ironhouse Sanitary District ordinance, not a statewide salt-softener ban. Ordinance No. 57 / Order No. 15-05, Water Softener Regulation Ordinance, adopted February 3, 2015, effective thirty days after first publication. Ironhouse serves the City of Oakley, Bethel Island, and some unincorporated Contra Costa. The City of Oakley is not Ironhouse if the address is on another sewer. Ask Ironhouse or the agency on the sewer bill about the address.

Section 4: no person shall install or in any manner assist in the installation of a residential or non-residential self-regenerating water softening appliance that discharges into the District sewer system owned and operated by the District or that discharges into a District sewer system that is tributary to the sewer system owned and operated by the District. New devices must comply. The ordinance says use of non-brine discharging water softening devices such as membrane or carbon systems are not prohibited by the District. Section 6: a Notice of Violation allows 30 days to correct or remove; after that, an administrative fine of $250 per month until the system is removed; a violation is a nuisance per se. We do not invent another exception.

Findings: the WRF discharge permit, Order No. R5-2013-0157 Provision C.3.c (Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board), required a salinity pollution-prevention work plan. The Salinity PPP was adopted by the ISD Board on November 4, 2014. The results indicate up to 27% of salinity entering the WRF is from water softeners. Those are the drivers in the findings. The ban itself is the district ordinance.

Drinking water is Diablo Water District, PWS CA0710007. DWD purchases untreated water from Contra Costa Water District (Contra Costa Canal; Rock Slough or Old River / San Joaquin), treats it at Randall-Bold WTP (joint DWD/CCWD), blends it with groundwater from the Glen Park and Stonecreek wells, and delivers that blend. The 2024 Annual Water Quality Report prints two labeled columns. Diablo Water District hardness 115 mg/L as CaCO3 (range 85–147). Randall-Bold WTP 80 mg/L (range 53–116). We do not invent a citywide blend.

Diablo column, 2024 tables: chloramines as Cl2 2.6 mg/L (range ND–3.3). Haloacetic acids 8.0 µg/L (range 4.2–14). TTHMs 21 µg/L (range 11–40). Nitrate as N 0.4 mg/L (range 0.1–0.9), MCL 10. Fluoride 0.71 mg/L (range 0.67–0.74). Lead 90th percentile 1.9 µg/L (29 sites / 0 above AL 15), EPA study June 2022. Copper 90th 0.24 mg/L (29/0 above AL 1.3). Chloride 67 mg/L (range 47–100). TDS 278 mg/L (range 226–348). Sodium 57 mg/L (range 48–73). Manganese 31 µg/L (range ND–140), secondary MCL 50 — a secondary aesthetic standard; DWD posts a manganese notice on its site. Hexavalent chromium is printed under untreated water test results (Diablo 0.6 µg/L, range 0.1–1.8), not as finished tap. The Diablo tables we opened do not print a PFAS detection row. This file does not invent one. Kitchen shopping stays the Cloud RO / Waterdrop path already used on other cities if a listing is why you are looking.