Delicato Winery in its escalating tiff with Manteca over future city growth has made it clear what is really at stake for the local economy — upwards of 500 jobs.

And at the heart of their concern is whether the winery will be able to continue land disposal of wastewater from the grape crushing process.

Caught in the middle are adjoining landowners and developers that want to build homes.

In particular, there is at least one new subdivision project being processed at city hall with 240 homes that Delicato never wants to see happen along North Union Road.

The city is now in the process of trying to negotiate a solution between the winery, the developers and its own municipal interests.

In a way it is reminiscent of another high stakes issue involving  development, wastewater, and ag-related jobs that Manteca leaders successfully maneuvered through 23 years ago.

The agricultural wastewater was from processing peppers and not grapes.

And the jobs at stake — 300 — were literally located just a matter of blocks from  Manteca at Eckert’s Cold Storage on Moffat Boulevard that backs up to the Manteca High football field.

The wastewater Eckert’s was sending to the city plan was raising serious quality issues with the treatment process prompting the state to threaten a cease and desist order.

Washing red peppers

was the problem

The food processing and cold storage operation in November of 2000 was sending 500,000 gallons of wastewater a day to the treatment plant from its process of washing red, green, and yellow bell peppers for processing.

An inordinate amount of red peppers was playing havoc at the treatment plant prompting the city to exceed acceptable nitrate levels and creating a potential lethal situation for fish swimming near the city’s outlet for treated wastewater on the San Joaquin River.

The solution was to build a purple line from the Eckert’s plant down Moffat, along the Highway 120 Bypass to a point west of Airport Way and up to the wastewater treatment plant where the nitrate laden water would be disposed on surplus land for crops that thrive off nitrates.

Unless the city could reduce the nitrates, Eckert’s would have been forced to close costing more than 300 Manteca private sector jobs. Eckert’s couldn’t afford the $1.2 million tab for the pipeline.

The housing boom was underway and sewer capacity was running out at the treatment plant.

Developers — working in conjunction with city staff —  hatched a plan to have the capacity used by Eckert’s shifted to residential uses in exchange for developers fronting the $1.2 million to build the line plus give another $2.3 million in bonus bucks – development agreement fees paid in exchange for sewer allocation certainty.

The water, basically harmless for land disposal, would no longer flow into the treatment plant.

Those bonus bucks made it possible to complete the Union Road fire station, build the skate park, and install traffic signals at two Tidewater crossings – one on Louise Avenue and the other on Northgate Drive.

The land diversion of Eckert’s wash water freed up plant capacity to accommodate 1,853 single family homes.

The pipeline wasn’t used for its intended purpose for almost seven years. The following year after the line was installed, Eckert reworked its process to pre-treat the water and reduce red peppers that was the cause of most of the problem.

Should Eckert’s not need the pipeline in the future, the city now has a backbone in place to transport treated water along the Highway 120 Bypass corridor for use in landscaping  to nearby heavy water users such as Woodward Park, the Spreckels BMX Park, as well as other parks and large expanses of lawn at schools.

The city at one pointed had a goal to use treated water to irrigate Big League Dreams sports complex and nearby shopping center landscaping. Purple pipe for that is also in place.

 In the case of Delicato, the way out of the current mess that threatens a municipal investment in excess of $1 million and seven years of work on the general plan update, involves the future zoning of land and not coming up with a solution per se with Delicato’s wastewater that is also heavily laden with nitrates.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com