American Canyon recently was fined $66,000 for violating clean water laws at its wastewater treatment plant. City officials want state water regulators to set aside some of the penalty money for local environmental projects.

The San Francisco Bay Regional Quality Control Board imposed the fine on the city in late November for a series of violations that occurred between October 2002 and June 2006, according to a Nov. 22 letter from the agency.

Of the 28 violations, 22 were for discharging zinc, copper, nickel and cyanide, metals and chemical compounds the plant is not designed to treat, according to the city. Another four violations were for discharging ammonia, a problem caused by a deficient plant design, according to Public Works Director Robert Weil.

The city received two other violations when coliforms were found in its plant’s effluent when the wastewater treatment plant’s disinfecting system malfunctioned in November 2003.

The wastewater treatment plant, a facility opened in 2002 on 58 acres near a grove of eucalyptus trees on the northwest side of town, treats up to 2.5 million gallons of sewage a day. The plant’s effluent ends up in the Napa River and San Pablo Bay.

On Jan. 23 the city will come before the San Francisco Bay Regional Quality Control Board with a proposal to have up to $40,500 of the $66,000 penalty remain in the community, according to Weil. The city would pay the other $25,500 to the state, Weil said this week.

The city’s $40,500 “supplemental environmental project” proposal would include repairs to a storm channel that drains the storm water to the wetlands near the city’s corporation yard off Wetland Edge Road, according to the proposal. It would also include an expansion of a watershed education program for school students enrolled in third through fifth grades through Friends of the Napa River.

Last month the city hired a consultant, RBF Consulting, to review its water, wastewater and flood control systems. It also selected another consultant, Bartle Wells Associates of Berkeley, to review the city’s water and sewer rates, which were last raised in 1999.

The cost of running the city’s sewer and potable water treatment systems has outpaced revenues, according to a report to the American Canyon City Council.

“We’re losing money and we can’t go on like that,” said Weil, who believes the rates may have to rise.

The city charges homeowners between $31.55 a month to $34.80 a month for sewer services, according to the city’s Finance Department. The rates vary according to the water usage during the previous winter.

By comparison, the Napa Sanitation District charges single family homes in Napa $315 a year for sewer services — or $26.25 a month.

American Canyon officials are also discussing expanding the plant.