Who Took The Water Out Of The Regional Water Quality Control Board?
I was able to attend the December 1st meeting of the Regional Water quality Control Board’s hearing in SLOTown, but had to work the next day and so missed day two. Happily, the whole thing is on videotape, so I was able to get a copy and watch it and something struck me forcefully after hours and hours of viewing: Not one person on the Board or Staff said, “You folks (the CSD & Los Osos) have run into a rock on the road. How can we help you get this project going in a direction the community will accept so we can solve the wastewater and water problems you’re facing?”
Now, CSD Chairpersonage, Lisa Schicker, brought that up. So did several other CSD Board members and members of the community, as in “The community has voted, for the first time it was clear during public comment on Blakeslee’s “negotiated deal that wasn’t negotiated” that the community was really starting to (grudgingly) come together, work on this deal, move this plant out of town and get going and we need your help to do that.”
But the RWQCB was having none of it. What they spent the whole time doing was finding out what assets the community collectively owned so they could extract as much money therefrom as possible. Not one peep about problem solving to get a derailed and divided community back on track to solve their water and wastewater problems in ways the majority of the community could accept.
Nope, no interest in . . . water. What keenly interested the Regional Water Quality Control Board for two days was . . . finding money.
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Calhoun's Can(n)ons was originally published in 1990 in the (now defunct) Morro Bay, CA, Sun Bulletin, and since 1992 has continued in the various resurrections of the Los Osos, CA. Bay News, Bay Breeze, Bay News, Bay News-Tolosa Press. A few years ago, the Can(n)on was added to the Central Coast NewsMission blogsite. Ann Calhoun lives in Los Osos. You can email her at Churadogs at gmail dot com
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11 comments:
Um...
Mixing the issues here.
They are interested in Water Quality. They are the group that imposes fines for failing to achieve mandated water quality goals. The LOCSD has not done what they promised, so fines should be imposed. If nothing else, such fines will increase the chance that other communities will treat their wastewater problems seriously even if we won't.
The key point is this community chose to stop a project, the only project to date that would have solved our water quality problems. Such an action (whether an action of the board or of the people) is simply asking to be fined.
Did you really think that the RWQCB wouldn't fine us just because Lisa said "we're trying, give us some grace ... again ... yeah, we know we've been diddling around for 30 years on this matter so an additional 5-10 shouldn't matter"?
Very well put Inlet!
Um....there is a difference between short term water quality and long range water planning. My impression is that the new CSD board is interested in addressing both issues, not just pleasing the water gods, who, by the way, like collecting money from communities who have not done their planning well.
Exactly anonymous,
This RWQCB is poised to fine the LOCSD for not planning well.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Well, other than the notion that this CSD board is interested in water quality, both short and long term. By delaying any sewer for some 5+ years it seems like they're not helping nitrates and the aquifer. On the other hand, maybe you know something we don't ... that their plans are so much better that the increased nitrates and saltwater intrusion into the aquifer due to this additional delay will be more than made up for by their new plans.
Does anyone think that if the RWQCB and the State Water Board had actually wanted to honor Measure B, abide by the voters wishes to relocate the plant, acknowledge and address some of the concerns over O,M & R costs, etc, that they would have renegotiated the SRF loan and amended the project plans concerning siting and both agencies would have worked with the CSD and all other agencies to expedite permitting & etc and the project could have moved right along?
Color me cynical but I have no doubt that's exactly what would have happened had the two Boards wished it so.
The RWQCB and SWRCB are not under any obligation to "honor" Measure B. The laws of Los Osos must conform with the laws of the state and if we choose (as with Measure B) to add extra stuff on top of that, the state is under no obligation.
In fact, the state has never been under any obligation at all in this mess ... it is the citizens of Los Osos who are under an obligation.
If we (by Measure B) choose to stop a fully permitted and financed project it is not their problem. In fact, it seems that both boards were pretty clear about what would happen if we voted for B and the recall.
Sharky,
Your phrasing is a little off. The boards made pretty clear what would happen if the project stopped.
They could care less about Measure B and the recall. We're getting fined, because the project stopped.
If the boards had waited 2 months to fine, after the project stops, would people be screaming bloody murder that the water board wasn't pro-active? So the water board prepares for & then starts enforcement immediately after the project stops, and people scream bloody murder. I hate to defend the water boards, but they can never win no matter what they do.
I guess they could give us an indefinite amount of time, but then they're not doing their job.
Here's hoping for a sewer for Christmas - maybe by 2012.
Publicworks, When the Solutions Group asked the Coastal Commission to refuse to issue the permit and thereby stopped the county's project cold in order to form the CSD and start a whole new system (The Ponds of Avalon, which the RWQCB and the Coastal Commission staff had already officially released their report on a month or more (June & Oct) before the election, which indicated that the ponds wouldnt work and would cost about $78 mil, not the $35 mil the Solutions Group was telling the community), the RWQCB, on the evening of the election, even before the vote was certified, did NOT prepare an ACL document and action. I wonder why not? Yet they did in this case. Why?
Another agency interfered. The Coastal Commission didn't grant the CDP and put the RWQCB in that position. If the CDP had been issued, and the project stopped, an ACL could have been issued. But we'll never know now, will we?
Ann, a month before this election, two separate judges had stated Measure B to be illegal and not retroactive. The warning signs were not just coming from the RWQCB.
Who wants to pay fines? No one. But it's irrefutable that the district, regardless of representation, stopped the project.
It is too bad the Solutions Group AND the CC & the whole town 'conspired' to stop a valid project from the County - ya' shoulda been asking questions back then Ann - their plan was out in the open to take shots at.
The Solutions Group didn't screw the town, the town screwed itself.
Dear Public Works, apparently you haven't been reading Calhoun's Can(n)ons. I have a whole years-long pile of "Oh, Loooooocy, ju gotta lotta 'splainin' to do" columns, just loaded with questions. And, to date, I've gotten no answers. Like hollering down a well.
Apparently you didn't read the post. I've read your columns. The project was stopped, hence the enforcement action.
We will soon see about the TSO - it may very well get amended, so another $180+/month sewer can be pursued, and a whole new round of litigation can start. Hopefully there will be some action to start some groundwater clean-up that no one wants to pay for.
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