Kundes turn wastewater into profits
Saralee and Rich Kunde are doing their parts to keep the Russian River free of Santa Rosa wastewater, a move that has helped them earn a profit and produce award-winning wines.
Today, the couple uses 25 million to 35 million gallons of the city’s highly treated wastewater each year to irrigate 260 acres of premium wine grapes, landscaping surrounding their Slusser Road home and a three-acre, park-like setting used to host weddings and high-profile community events.
“We use it on everything. It’s been a priceless commodity for us,” Saralee Kunde said. She and her husband, both with long-standing roots in Sonoma County’s farm community, bought the vineyards and home in the rural foothills a short distance from the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport and turned it into what is know known as Richard’s Grove & Saralee’s Vineyard.
She recalls that they started using the wastewater in 1992 as Santa Rosa, desperate to ease tensions over its discharges into the Russian River, searched for those willing to use it for irrigation.
At that time the city’s effluent was widely scorned, including by some in agriculture who believed it could harm the reputation of their crops.
Even today, north county farmers and vineyard owners are fighting attempts by the Sonoma County Water Agency to develop a storage and distribution system to irrigate thousands of acres of agricultural lands.
They worry the effluent would pollute the river, nearby streams and their own drinking wells.
The Kundes, however, see the wastewater — considered safe enough to fill a swimming pool, according to state water quality standards — as a godsend.
Kunde is unconcerned the wastewater they use to irrigate might contaminate their own shallow, 60-foot wells that provide water for drinking, cooking and showers.
“It’s tertiary-treated. I have no concerns at all,” Kunde said. “It’s been a priceless commodity for us. It’s done great things. If we didn’t have it, we wouldn’t have a crop.”
She said their deeper irrigation well, located a short distance from a former dump near the county airport, is tainted with methane gas. The water is costly to pump and treat before it can be used.
The Kundes use the effluent, provided for free by the city, to irrigate more than 20 varietals of premium wine grapes they sell to nearly 60 wineries. Some of those wines have earned accolades in wine-judging competitions throughout the state.
Today every drop of their irrigation water comes from a 15 million-gallon wastewater reservoir, the decorative centerpiece of their irrigation and frost protection system.
It’s fed by a series of distribution pipelines the city installed nearly two decades ago to tie dozens of farms to the Llano Road regional sewage treatment plant, a move undertaken to cut the city’s discharge effects on the Russian River.
The Kundes weren’t among the pioneers of the wastewater reuse movement but followed in the footsteps of others who turned to wastewater as a cheap and stable source for irrigation, particularly for pastures and fodder crops.
About 50 farmers and grape growers, including Gallo, are now part of the wastewater distribution system.
Combined, they used 1.7 billion gallons of wastewater, about 25 percent of the total generated by Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sebastopol, to irrigate 6,400 acres of farm land and vineyards over the past year.
Santa Rosa Utilities Director Miles Ferris called the Kundes “visionaries” for their widespread use of the city-supplied commodity. Their multi-phased, re-use project “is second to none,” he said.
It earned them the “2008 Recycled Water Agricultural Customer of the Year” Award” from the WateReuse Association, a national organization the promotes the reclamation and recycling of wastewater.