Calhouns Can(n)ons

Viewpoint



The following Viewpoint was published in the Sun Bulletin last week (Dec 10-14) by CSD Board Member Lisa Schicker. The EIR Scoping meeting is tonight (Dec 18) at the Los Osos Community Center at 7 pm. These kinds of issues will be discussed, so I hope the community will attend and let the county know any concerns you have as to the updating of the EIR be given to them. Speak now or forever hold your peace. (I hope the links will work. A reader noted that a previous link listed for Ron's Sewerwatch site apparently kept leaving off an important tag. Hmmmm)



Tri W is Dead – Viewpoint by Lisa Schicker December 10, 2007

A recent article about Los Osos and snails at the old downtown sewer site (Tri-W), states that the County says they are “required by law” to re-evaluate TRI-W.



As an environmental professional who writes CEQA/NEPA documents for a living, I disagree with that statement – I can find no environmental law that “REQUIRES” the County to re-evaluate the abandoned downtown (TriW) sewer site. If that were true, the County would also have to re-evaluate all of their past selected sewer sites – are the Turri Road and Pismo sites, for instance, also being re-evaluated?



As an elected official who helped expose the numerous environmental, engineering, health and safety flaws of the abandoned downtown-by-the-National Estuary-sewer site, I also disagree that the County must re-evaluate Tri-W.



There is ample evidence to abandon Tri-W now, and not waste another minute of time: The citizens of Los Osos elected a Board of Directors (and recalled three old directors) in three separate elections that ran on a “Move the Sewer” platform (move it away from tri-w). The citizens voted and approved Measure B – an environmental siting ordinance based on the original flawed selection of the downtown site.



The LOCSD Board rescinded the 2001 EIR’s CEQA/NEPA Statement of Overriding Considerations (SOC) in Resolution 2006-20, because most of the 2001 SOC’s were based on fraudulent statements and unsubstantiated conclusions. Coastal Commission official transcripts reveal “had they known then, what they know now, they would have never approved a project” at TRI-W.



New laws and the newly designated Morro Bay State Marine Reserve have made it unlikely that the downtown site is environmentally viable at all. The County’s 2007 Fine Screening Report, the 2006 Ripley Project Report Update and 2006 National Water Institute’s Independent Professional Review have also discounted the environmental viability and logic for choosing this site.



The County has ample justification under the laws of our state to abandon any further evaluation of this old sewer site, especially when our budget is so tight and the project will be so expensive and also because Tri-W is "ESHA" (environmentally designated sensitive habitat).



Since the County has already identified several other feasible, non-ESHA sites, that instantly makes building at Tri-W a gross violation of their land use ordinance called the CZLUO. ("CZLUO Section 23.08.288d allows public facilities within ESHA only where there is no other feasible location.").



There is no justifiable reason or law to keep Tri-W alive any longer. SLO County, please don’t waste any more of our money and time, those of us who are paying for this project and your services, with any further consideration of this Tri-w downtown sewer site.



Thank you. Lisa Schicker, LOCSD Director and Baywood Park Citizen…..



Please also publish on your website the following attachments, to support these claims that Tri-W should be abandoned now, and not later.

SLO County CZLUO Section 23.08.288d allows public facilities within ESHA only where there is no other feasible location. http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PL/Ordinances/Title+23+-+Coastal+Zone+Land+Use+Ordinance.pdf

Link to 2007 County Fine Screening Report: http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/document+library/FINAL+Fine+Screening+Report+8-07.pdfLink to 2006 Ripley Project Report: http://www.losososcsd.org/
SLO County CZLUO Section 23.08.288d allows public facilities within ESHA only where there is no other feasible location. http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PL/Ordinances/Title+23+-+Coastal+Zone+Land+Use+Ordinance.pdf
2006 National Water Research Institute Report (attached) and linked http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/NWRI+LOWWMP+Update-Dec+4+2006.pdf.pdfLOCSD Resolution 2006-20 – Rescission of 2001 EIR Statement of Overriding Considerations (attached) Link to Research conducted by Ron Crawford and Ann Calhoun Independent Journalists:
http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2006/08/loopiest-of-loopholes-recently.html