Calhouns Can(n)ons

Oops! # 1

In this morning’s Tribune it notes that the Los Osos CSD has hired attorney Shauna Sullivan to represent The Los Osos 45 in their CDO appeal to the State Water Board as well in a real court if the SWB ignores the appeals.

Good for the CSD. These 45 people have been put through hell for a whole year with very real health consequences for many of them. They have had their lives disrupted and damaged for a whole year.

And for what? If the Regional Water Quality Control Board had wanted the community to pump, inspect, repair, (even though they had received expert testimony that doing so wouldn’t do diddly to the upper aquifer, still it’s a kinda nice “feel good” gesture and might end up helping perched water or maybe help some low lying areas a bit) all they had to do is send us proper notification and a formal request and the vast majority of people would have happily complied.

Instead, the Regional Water Quality Control Board abused its power and discretion, demonstrated its complete lack of “science” and failure to do its homework with their original Mad Pumping Scheme, cooked up a settlement agreement that offered fewer protections to homeowners and so hammered people into signing it “under duress” (all the while denying it was duress), stupidly threatened the whole town with CDOs as well, spent God Knows How Much Of Your Tax Money on these appalling Mat Hatter “Trials,” all the while tying the cessation of these kangaroo court proceedings to the “correct” 218 vote on the county project, thereby moronically opening themselves up to charges of illegal “electioneering” which could derail this entire project with a lawsuit – It’s Los Osos, Home of Lawsuits, give somebody a chink and they’ll drive a piton into it -- thereby causing this writer to wonder how could these people be so stupid as to even make that link, in writing, in a legal document, fer crying out loud??

Now, in this Tribune story, here’s RWQCB Staff member, Harvey Packard: “He added, though, that the regional board has no plans now to expand enforcement beyond the 45 targeted.”

OOPS. Harvey Packard is STAFF. The Regional Board has not met or voted on how or whether to proceed, so sayeth Chairman Jeffery Young at the Jan 22 meeting. Supposedly (Wink-nudge? Wink-nudge?) nobody knows how they’ll vote or what they will do next. That item #6 was on the January 22 meeting agenda and was postponed, to be decided next time after public input and a vote. The last agenda I got noted that the next meeting in Feb. would not allow ANY discussion or input on anything having to do with Los Osos at all. Zip, Zero, Nada. So item #6 would appear possibly on the March calendar, after the Board had finished trying and beheading a few more of The Los Osos 45.

Yet here’s a STAFF member informing the community what the Board has decided even before the board has decided it?


Quel interestings, as they say. Or, Boy, let’s hope that Tribune quote was accurate? Or maybe Mr. Packard’s a mind reader who can see into the future? If so, he needs to quit this day job and go out on the road!

OOPS #2

If you haven’t gotten your edition of The Rock (editor Ed Ochs told me he’d be delivering a copy to everyone in town soon, and posting it soon on their website, for those of you living outside Los Osos) I encourage you to track it down. Starting on page 6 is an interview with Dana Ripley of Ripley Pacific, the folks who prepared the project update report and presented their own recommendation for a STEP wastewater plan, both of which were reviewed at the NWRI “Peer Review Workshop” last year.

Consider, Pg. 6, third paragraph, re the Workshop discussion: “ . . . Of particular interest to me was that the water board staff indicated that it was “on the fence” and “may have erred” in approving the high rate effluent dispersal plan at Broderson. I wrote previously in November 2003 that the Broderson effluent plan needed to consider the State Health Department recharge reuse criteria, and the NWRI panel agreed with that assertion since the Los Osos upper aquifer has historically been a potable water source. State antidegradation policies, in my opinion, require that it be considered a potable water supply irrespective of any degradation that has occurred over recent decades. This was a major concession that strikes at the heart oat the feasibility of the Broderson high rate dispersal plan.”

And, P.8 paragraph three: “If the high rate dispersal plan requires RO, then the whole benefit of the Broderson site comes into question. If Broderson is abandoned for dispersal, then what justification at all remains for keeping Tri-w? Answer: none whatsoever. The pivotal issue, in my opinion, is whether or not the upper aquifer constitutes a potable supply. Since it historically was potable supply, state antidegradation policy would manate that it be considered potable supply today, and a plan advanced to restore potable water quality. The State health recharge reuse guidelines therefore apply. The NWRI panel made the same determination and the water board staff agreed that it “may have erred” on this. If Broderson is abandoned for dispersal, then Tri-W automatically needs to be abandoned as well, for what is a treatment plant worth without an effluent plan close by? Tri-W is simply the wrong treatment location for a host of reasons and the pre-existing approvals are simply of no value.”

The RWQCB staff . . . . . . may have erred.


(According to the NWRI report, RWQCB attendees were: Matt Thompson, P.E. Water Resource Control Engineer and Allison Dominguez, Environmental Scientist. Not known is just who was the original Staff member who made the decision regarding Broderson, which decision is now come into question as being in “error?”)

Now, please recall the videotape presented at the CSD’s CDO “Trial” wherein we saw the late Rose Bowker, then president of the CSD, telling General Manager Bruce Buel that they didn’t have sufficient geological information to make a sound decision as to which dispersal/recharge/disposal site to pick and Mr. Buel saying, yep, that’s right but we have to make a decision tonight or else face FINESFINESFINESFINES from the RWQCB for violating the TSO & etc. (Also, please recall at that same CSD's CDO “trial” Bruce Buel being asked four times and four times, under oath, replying that he found the TSO “unreasonable.”

Connect the dots, please. Thank you.