In my previous post, I noted a link to Ron Crawford's latest posting, "The Tribune -- STILL worse than Nothing" -- and the next day, here's Exhibit A:
Front page story on, uh, what, exactly? Headline said: "Reclamator creator touts plan for Osos" " The maker of the purported toilet-to-tap device says a proposed partnership with the idstrict will solve the town's problems -- including bankruptcy."
Front page. Big type. Woooo! I could almost feel the hearts and spirits of the community rising as Tribune subscribers wandered out into the cold and wet soggy morning to pick up their papers. Ah, We Are Saved!
Urrrrnnnkkkk, not even close. Buried back on the page 6 jump are the unpleasant "facts" that should have alerted the editors that this story isn't ready for prime time.
Before ANY decisions get made about Mr. Murphy's "Reclamator," somebody --- Mr. Murphy? -- needs to go into federal? state? court to get a ruling on a whole bunch of things, including a definition of "discharge," and "pollution" and a ruling on the discharge numbers allowed under 83-13, among other things. Also, somebody needs to get a ruling over jurisdiction of septic tanks, and "discharge" of whatever is leaving whatever it is that's processing household wastewater and such like.
Without those rulings, this headline is nothing but paper-selling hokum. What went missing is the solid research that would nail down Mr. Murphy's claims and the RWQCB's claims -- i.e. asking that Mr. Harvey Packard formally declare that Mr. Murphy's device WILL NOT be allowed within the PZ and just as formally and officially indicate the policy and court rulings that support that official ruling. (What was noted in this non-story is Mr. Packard saying Murphy's plan wouldn't have an effect on the RWQCB's fine -- no mention of the RWQCB's declarations concerning CDOs and "discharges" within the PZ. THAT's the issue that's still gone missing in all stories about Mr. Murphy and his "Reclamator:"
Here's what the Tribune needs to nail down: An Official, final, legal ruling by the RWQCB on Mr. Murphy's device. Until that's forthcoming, then all we have here is Gamesmanship by Headlines starring Regulators, the County and an Entrepreneur.
And the public interest be damned.
Meantime, while the whooped-up headlines likely caught everyone's attention, they probably missed the small "More Coverage Inside" box which was snuggled next to the sub head, in tiny print, "Sewer project: County officials say work will go on after being denied $5 million in federal funding, Page 6.)
Ah yes, a PLAN FOR OSOS on the front page, big time, and $5 mil down the drain in tiny type buried inside. Yep, that's our Tribune.
Movie Time.
Had my own letter to the editor show up in the Tribune. I was struck by a Jan 18th letter from Lorraine Bailey who very clearly was not happy with the movie, "No Country For Old Men," but did like "Charlie Wilson's War."
My response: "In her Jan. 18 letter ("Bad flick, good flick") Lorraine Bailey notes that she found "No Country for Old men" the worst movie she'd ever seen, in part because the critics "forgot to comment on the story line about a serial killer who murdered innocent people." In "No Country for Old Men," the professional hitman, played with chilling weirdness by Javier Bardem, killed about six people [hmmm, maybe have to correct that to seven? the possible 8th still isn't clear to me. There were so many other "hunters" after the hunter, hard to know just who got whom] to complete his mission, hence Ms. Bailey's bad review. On the other hand, she found that "Charlie wilson's War" provided "knowledge, humor and entertainment."
I found that an interesting comparison -- a hit man with six kills versus Charlie Wilson -- because clearly the critics also must have forgotten to inform Ms. Bailey that the direct blowback from Charlie's humorous and entertaining little war was Sept. 11 and the ongoing Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The kill rate in those conflicts is now in the hundreds of thousands of "murdered innocent people with plenty of blood and horror."
If the death toll of murdered innocents is the deciding factor, surely Charlie's little war would get "four tickets," while "No Country for Old Men" would barely rate as a humorous children's story by comparison." --end--
To be fair, Ms. Bailey likely wasn't familiar with the U.S.'s 30-year-old "great game" with Russia, part of the cold war with a still existant Soviet Union, and likely unfamiliar with that direct blowback. And Mike Nichol's light touch likely focused on the loonier aspects of that under-the-radar-we-deny-it-all quasi-black OP. And to be doubly fair, "No Country" is a harrowing film.
But for me, there is a bothersome "Springtime For Hitler" aspect to "Charlie's War," that has kept me from the theatre. The critics haven't been too kind either. Comedy, even black comedy is hard to pull off. And comedy involving so many dead . . . . mmmmm, even harder.
But I suspect "Charlie's War" is likely a perfect movie for a country that has litttle or no historical memory and so has little interest in or ability to connect the dots.
Speaking of Dots
Little blurb in the Trib: There's a new website that posts all those wonderful little dots from the Bush Administration that led to the Iraq war. The Center for Public Integrity has created the website so people can search for various buzz-words, i.e. look for the famous "mushroom cloud" reference, and up will pop the documents fin which the words appeared.
The database is at http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
For anyone paying attention at the time, or for anyone familiar with governmenal weasle-words and spin and media hype, those muddy little dots were all too clear. As was the failure of the Congress to do its job. Well, too late now.
But, look on the humorous and entertaining bright side: Maybe this data base will serve as a resource a few years from now for some screenwriter looking for a sparky, new comedy called "Georgie's War," a laff-a-minute comedy including hilarious scenes of whole pallets of gazillions of crisp dollars being "lost" in Baghdad's chaos, missing weapons caches, many of which likely turned up later as IED's aimed at American Soldiers. The Keystone Kops possibilities are endless.
Dr. Strangelove, anyone?
Posts
25 comments:
I'll go. The Tribune has no investigative reporting. It has no real local sports reporting (youth baseball, etc.). It has minimal local government reporting.
Bob Cuddy reports one story the day after the Board of Supervisors meeting. If three major things occurred, only one will be reported the next day. The others will trickle in over the rest of the week, if at all.
The final actions of Los Osos CSD meetings are rarely reported the following day.
Ms. Patel basically writes an article when someone provides her with a press release to work from.
If local government news happens on the day off of either Mr. Cuddy or Ms. Patel, it is as if it never happened.
The Tribune works this way because it is subject to modern newspaper economics. Nationally, the papers are victims of the internet and cable TV, where people get the news fast and almost in real time.
To be economically viable, they can not be local stand alone papers. They must be bundled with scores of others,owned by out of town corporations. This does not facilitate investigative reporting of local stories that may take weeks to research. The local papers simply can not afford to pay reporters for that kind of work. They need to keep the sales price competitive and make money for their stockholders.
Basically, we get what we pay for with the Tribune. It can be frustrating.
I thank and appreciate Ann for the blog!
The blog is doing to the Tribune, what talk radio did to the "evening" television news.
Long live Ann's Land!
Think cable news networks here.
Ron is one H-E-double hockey sticks of a reporter/blog master.
I wonder what Ann's Land would look like if he "pimped" her ride?
I wanted to "publish" this educational/entertinment/opinion piece for your study and reading enjoyment.
Bob Cuddy may soon have to "drink" his words, just kidding Bob.
LEGENDS OF THE NEW WEST
TOM TERRIFIC AND MESA MARK RIDE INTO LOS OSOS WITH A BETTER IDEA—AND ARE MET WITH A HAIL OF BULLETS
Tom Murphy and Mark Low came to Los Osos on a mission to free the besieged town from the County’s “Big Sewer” scam, and along way they exposed Scribbler Cruddycud and The Fibune newspaper for cranking out raw sewage without a permit. Despite ambush after ambush, their mission continues to gain momentum.
By DR. I. M. FOHAT, Curator, Los Osos Historical Society
Folks hereabouts like to hold on to their Old West heritage of inbred corruption. And sure enough, one of the sturdier icons of the good old days—the toady town “reporter”—is still alive and snooping for the corrupt County even today, in the question-marked-shaped form of Scribbler Cruddycud.
It’s a classic collision of Old West vs. New West values, and even though the Old West is fading fast, it’s not going anywhere without first slinging some heavy mud and putting up a dirty fight in broad daylight.
Scribbler Cruddycud dips his poison pen in the inkwell of County corruption and scratches out his cowardly slander for The Fibune, mouthpiece for the bribe-fed County and money-hungry developers from as far away as Orange County. From his underground bunker in Los Osos, an embittered, sloe-eyed Cruddycud, who as a youth nurtured grand delusions of winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, now reinvents himself weekly in his Fibune newspaper column. By the glowing light of his tax-writeoff computer, the night-crawling Cruddycud becomes “The Amazing, Spectacular, Colossal… Defamatator!!!!” Not to be confused with Tom Murphy’s head-turning, low-cost, water-purifying home Reclamator.
Now, slander is an old act patented centuries ago by the power holders to dispense with anything that threatened their dominance, and no one does it as cheaply as Scribbler Cruddycud does it for The Fibune—only pennies a day. But does any reader really think what Cruddycud writes is true and swallow the slanderer’s slather and slobber. Perhaps that depends on whether readers believe everything they read in The Fibune and how much time they have on their hands. Some adults, such as Dave Congalton, the County’s in-pocket radio host and local Russ Limbaugh imitator, believe whatever The Fibune prints is true, and cynical Cruddycud plays to this oxycontin-clouded audience for canned applause.
Scribbler Cruddycud knows well the battered citizens of Los Osos thirst for the truth not found anywhere in the pages of The Fibune—for an end to the brooding decades of trouble brought to a boiling point by the raw sewage about Los Osos constantly printed in The Fibune—some of it knitted together by Cruddycud himself to feed his passion for animal husbandry. It is Cruddycud’s job to keep that truth out of the hands of the people, and he’s a pro, as far as weasels go.
Weary, anxious, desperate—Los Osans are ready for a real solution to their torment at the hands of a slave army of media maggots like Cruddycud and Congalton, paid by the County to torpedo anything new and innovative that might come along and upset the holy apple cart—like the way Tom Murphy’s Reclamator has come along and captured the imagination of beleaguered Los Osos.
Homegrown Axis of Evil
Los Osans know The Fibune, RWQCB and the County are working hand in hand to force them to hook up to a $300 million sewer, payable by homeowners at the rate of $300 a month to drive them out of town fast. Then the realtors can re-sell the land for the wealthy to rebuild their brick shit houses on. At the same time, this same un-American Axis of Evil dares to deprive Los Osans of their legal right to comply with zero-discharge regulations without having to hook up to the County’s “most expensive sewer per capita in America.” Cruddycud has long kept the community in the dark so developers can take over Los Osos without a shot being fired. It works like a charm when you’re a monopoly like The Fibune, or the government, for that matter—they’re both corporate monoliths.
Where people despair, vultures circle—and Cruddycud, The Fibune, RWQCB and County—aka “The System”—littered Los Osos with brochures, billboards and mailers that screamed, “Vote YES on 218! Invest in Los Osos!” What they didn’t tell you was that it’s not an investment, it’s a tax, and a humungous, unnecessary tax at that! Much of the County hype machine echoes the standard lies about how keen the old middle-of-town Tri-W project still is and how peachy the County’s new $300 million big-pipe project will be!
It isn’t fair the way The Fibune constantly scared people into voting “yes” and into buying something three times more expensive than they need to fix the so-called “problem” as they see it.
“Vote YES!” Cruddycud cried for his supper. “Vote YES! Or Disaster and Chaos Will Reign in Los Osos for 100 Years!”
He forgot to add, “and we’ll take your home when you can’t make the payments on a $300 a month sewer bill!”
Tom Murphy believes the Big Sewer will cost upwards of $70,000 per household, could take more than five years to complete, will tear up the town, and take away the homeowner’s right to conserve and reuse their own water in a deep drought parching California—a drought that makes every homeowner’s water a valuable resource gaining in value with each passing day. What doesn’t anyone understand anymore about Global Warming? On the other hand, the Reclamator will cost an average of $3,500 per household, requires no new engineering, no community sewer hookup, and it recharges the community’s aquifers. On the application side, with The Reclamator, Los Osos homeowners benefit from full rights to 100% of their reclaimed/purified water, which they can recycle for current or future reuse, indoors or out.
No Discharge, No Hookup
“Water produced by The Reclamator doesn’t contain any pollutants that are subject to enforcement,” Murphy recently told a crowd gathered at Sea Pines to hear more about the Reclamator. “Without the discharge of waste, there is no justification for anyone, even the Water Board, to force you to give up the rights to your water you have purchased without fair and just compensation.”
Armed with The Reclamator, the County can’t charge for sewer service and can’t force homeowners to hook up. Because The Reclamator does not discharge, period. It neither discharges waste nor pollutants.
“Without wastewater or sewage being discharged from your house, or source,” Murphy said, “no one can charge you to provide you sewer service as all you have is purified water on your property, not any waste.”
So, The Reclamator breaks the chains in which the County plans has enslave Los Osos with a bad sewer that doesn’t work and a big debt it can’t pay. Oh.how the County rues the day Tom Murphy and Mark Low drove into town with The Reclamator!
“There is no law which requires you to discharge waste or pay a publicly-owned sewer service entity to take your water, that is, after you remove the pollutants from it. To the contrary,” Murphy reminded the surging crowd, “the law requires each homeowner—the owner/operator—to eliminate their discharge of waste at the source, the homeowner’s property. Once you eliminate the waste, you eliminate the Water Board’s authority!
“As a matter of fact, since The Reclamator alternative is available and is so cost effective, a conventional sewer would be in violation of federal law, the law of the United States [U.S. Code, Title 33, Chapter 26], which requires alternative technology to be applied to eliminate the discharge of pollutants at the source through application of best available pre-treatment technology so as to eliminate the discharge of pollutants from your property into a publicly-owned sewer lateral.”
Warned Murphy, “Conventional sewers have been illegal since 1994 provided there was a cost-effective alternative available. This is why a conventional sewer doesn’t qualify for federal grant assistance under this U.S. Code and The Reclamator alternative does.”
Cruddycud Trips Up
It was obvious that Cruddycud didn’t want to be spotted hearing what he heard with his own cauliflower ears. He might have escaped into the shadows had he not been seen tripping over a chair as he was sneaking out of the meeting room through a side door. And he never wrote a word about what he heard there.
It’s a simple formula, re ally. The Fibune, annually proclaimed one of the 10 worst newspapers in the US by the American Journalism Association, spreads lies like hot lard on the cheapest sawdust white toast, and serves it up daily to a truth-deprived-puzzled-numb readership. All village flack Cruddycud wants is his cut so he can feed his cruel habit. The truth is always the first casualty in war and newspaper reporting, and Cruddycud reports only what the County tells him, which is light years from the truth. Truth is on a treadmill to nowhere in San Luis Obispo, and the Feds act like it isn’t one of the oldest scams in the world.
The County Newspaper caper is so old in San Luis Obispo it’s grown a bushy white beard and wears bifocals. Why didn’t the County give Los Osos a fair 218 vote with real projects and prices with all the costs rolled in? Why didn’t they present all the options and costs up front and let the people vote, rather than skate the gray area between legal and illegal and push their developer’s agenda for Los Osos? Why won’t The Fibune publish a list of their biggest advertisers—realtors, banks, mortgage and loan companies—so people can see the special interests that own them with their ad dollars? Why must they profit on the misery of the people who live in the so-called “Prohibition Zone”? Was there just too much money on the line to leave up to the “uninformed” voters of Los to Osos decide? The County didn’t need to have a Plan B in case the “no” vote won, because they knew the vote was rigged for a “yes” from day one. That was the day Assembly Bill AB2701 was rammed through the State Senate with a clause calling for protection from “urgent risks to public health”—requiring a “50% plus one” vote rather than the standard two-thirds. AB2701 was the legal end-around deployed by Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee to hijack the Los Osos Wastewater Project, before it could go STEP, decentralized or Reclamator. Blakeslee, born into a family where corruption is a birthright, snatched the project and handed it over to the County to restart the old, defeated, fatally-flawed gravity collection project in the middle of town.
As rude as a beef-fed bully on steroids, the County says it will ponder The Reclamator…as they work overtime to bury it. Bringing the big pipes into Los Osos releases a profit windfall for builders, developers and contractors 35 years in the making. Developers made up their minds years ago, paid their kickbacks and now want “what’s coming to them.” Nothing is going to stop them from taking what they see as rightfully theirs. They view it as basically a matter of “payment overdue.” Enter The Reclamator—it’s a real threat to the clique of profiteers who long ago divided up the millions of dollars in sewer booty. No wonder the very last person they want to see in Los Osos is Tom Murphy. He could just as well have called his Reclamator “the equalizer.”
The people of Los Osos have long complained to The Fibune about the treatment they receive at the hands of the Cruddycuds and other juvenile typists trained like attack dogs to keep County order in Los Osos. All to no avail.
Instead, The Fibune, RWQCB and County teamed up to blot out the sun by blaring misleading and unsubstantiated claims about what will happen to Los Osos (“disaster,” “chaos”) if the 218 failed to pass. They threatened Los Osos residents that if they didn’t buy into the Big Sewer, which they can’t afford, they would lose their homes for sure. The Fibune hollered, “Ignore The Reclamator!” Congalton bellowed, “Deplore The Reclamator!” The County ‘s choice for Los Osos is either the expensive sewer or the more expensive sewer, both too expensive for thousands of homeowners. That’s what passes for democracy in San Luis Obispo County.
Here’s some advice for fed-up Fibune readers: Desperate times may call for desperate measures by desperate power brokers demanding unlimited profits and all your water or else, so don’t believe everything you read in The Fibune. Most of it is poorly written, poorly edited, and purposefully biased. Don’t be taken in by Old West hacks on hangovers posing as journalists for the New West development cartel. They are peddling dark tales for a dark age, threatening instability and fines if the status quo is not maintained and the people not bled of their last dollar to feed the insatiable appetite of runaway County and rogue State bureaucracies.
But if blame is your game, dear reader, if you insist on believing what you read in The Fibune and later hear from the County you owe $300 or more a month on your total sewer bill—and want to change your vote—blame yourself. Then ask yourself who sold you that monkey suit and who told you to put it on, and you might want to devote yourself to another old Western pastime—tarring and feathering.
Scribbler Cruddycud may only be a cog in the wheel, but it’s cogs like him that make the wheel go round, the same wheel that is now rolling downhill over Los Osos, crashing through the middle of town and running over this once diverse community.
So fire up the tar wagon and gather the feathers for Scribbler Cruddycud’s farewell. It’s time to knock on his front door in Los Osos and give him the news in person that his slanderous services are no longer required. Tell him Tom Murphy’s Reclamator has made his job obsolete.
Dr. I.M. Fohat is a retired Professor of Archeology at Cal Poly, author of the book “The Big Spell,” and a former subscriber to The Fibune.
Mark sez:"Tell him Tom Murphy’s Reclamator has made his job obsolete."
Uh, not so fast Mister. Mr. Murphy FIRST has to either come back into town with a FEDERAL COURT RULING or a STATE COURT RULING or an OFFICIAL RULING FROM THE RWQCB or the SWB or the GOVERNATOR that OFFICIALLY authorizes onsite systems are allowed in the PZ, NOT SUBJECT TO RWQCB'S CONTROL. (Or at lease, under their control but with a heavy boot on Roger Briggs' neck so he doesn't play the game of: "OK, onsite's O.K, but the permit for it will cost you -- heh-heh --- $1,200 a month." Until Mr. Murphy does that, it's all smoke and mirrors and gamesmanship with the poor citizens caught in the middle. Enough already.
Thank you Ann!!!!!!
Churadogs- I appreciate where you are coming from. Please understand someone has to stand against malfeasance. Technology and the Law make it possible. Please don't forget about California Water Law 13301.1 that was not and is not now being followed.
§ 13301.1. Assistance with order
The regional board shall render to persons against whom
a cease and desist order is issued pursuant to Section
13301 all possible assistance in making available current
information on successful and economical water quality
control programs, as such information is developed by the
state board pursuant to Section 13167, and information
and assistance in applying for federal and state funds
necessary to comply with the cease and desist order
---threatening instability and fines if the status quo is not maintained and the people not bled of their last dollar to feed the insatiable appetite of runaway County and rogue State bureaucracies.
Now a little good news:
After almost one year of writing and asking why USC 44/33 was posted
and that USC 33/26 was not , our group recently found that the USEPA
has finally posted USC 33/26 to its website!
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/index.html#caa
Of course we are encouraged by this act of "promulgation" and expect now
that many within and outside of USEPA will begin to follow the law.
Sec. 1251. Congressional declaration of goals and policy
(a) Restoration and maintenance of chemical, physical and biological
integrity of Nation's waters; national goals for achievement of
objective
We must BEAR in mind that our liberty and freedom are precious and that we are still a government -"of the people, by the people and for the people"- Abraham Lincoln.
Folks who work in government are our "public servants" constrained by laws.
Sometimes we forget these most important principles.
Demand integrity! Persistence and diligence pay dividends.
Sewertoons said...
Thank you Ann!!!!!!
Mark Says- Double ditto!!
Ann said, "Until Mr. Murphy does that, it's all smoke and mirrors and gamesmanship with the poor citizens caught in the middle. Enough already.
I said thank you, referring to her criticism of your repetitive and misleading mumbo-jumbo. Guess you missed that, mark.
Naw. I understand we are talking past each other.
A federally compliant technology vs. a county study of sewerage. "Meanwhile, county public works officials are forging ahead on a draft environmental impact report on the sewer that’s expected to be completed by late August.
That draft report is expected to analyze about 22 potential sites for a sewage treatment plant—at least four of them in detail, according to Mark Hutchinson, county environmental program manager.
The final environmental report— which would identify a proposed project — is expected to be released in early 2009.
Final design efforts would be made in 2009 and final construction in 2010, according to county officials."
Did I miss anything?
Final construction?
Mark sez:"Of course we are encouraged by this act of "promulgation" and expect now
that many within and outside of USEPA will begin to follow the law."
Why on earth would anyone believe that? The most recent demurr/anti demurr just sent down from the State's Attorney General's Office, which is hammering the Los Osos 45, says, if I read it right, that the state and the RWQCB dont' have to lift a finger to do zip for anyone. Instead of hammering the 45, why aren't the AG's boys busy seeing to it USEPA is following the law? As I see it, the ONLY way to get these folks to follow their own laws is to haul them into court and hope you can find a judge who actually cares whether or not they are following the law. So far all I've seen is wink-nudge, oh, wellll. . . .
Mark sez:"That draft report is expected to analyze about 22 potential sites for a sewage treatment plant—at least four of them in detail, according to Mark Hutchinson, county environmental program manager."
Interesting that there is apparently no mention of any review of any onsite Best Technologies and/or plans, (if there were, there'd be mention of 4,500 "sites" being looked at)but only mention of A sewer plant (singular.) Either a review of all "alternative" technologies has already taken place or onsite's been shoved off the table already. Wink nudge. (Once again, we're back to square one. Unless and until Mark goes into federal/state court and gets a judge to rule that onsite cannot unilaterally be taken off the table by Briggs and the RWQCB, a priori, then this is all just more smoke and mirrors.)
Who let the dogs out?!
Double Bull's Eye Ann!!
"We the people"- must demand integrity and accountabilty.
I'm paddling as hard as I can...wink/nudge.
Imagine what a difference a few more informed, concerned and active citizens would make. I do...
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Low
To: Patel, Sona - SLO
Cc: Strauss.Alexis@epamail.epa.gov ; Ong.John@epamail.epa.gov ; McGovern.Cheryl@epa.gov ; Hudson.Joyce@epamail.epa.gov ; assemblymember.blakeslee@assembly.ca.gov ; BGibson@co.slo.ca.us ; tom@nowastewater.com ; pogren@co.slo.ca.us ; Finucane, Stephanie ; bmorem@thetribunenews.com ; Greg Haas
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2008 10:24 AM
Subject: "218 bonding activity"
Hello Sona,
There has been no mention of the "218 bonding activity" in your reporting, unless I missed it.
I am interested what your paper's counsel thinks about the "Fraudulent use of 218" located on the www.NOwastewater.com homepage.
We haven't heard anything from the county or its outside counsel Sam Sperry about it either.
As the "cost" of any LOSTDEP Solution is paramount and as I understand it, the County won't decide on whether to take responsibility for the discharges until after the final environmental report is successfully completed, your readers in Los Osos/Baywood Park ought to be interested in this piece of the story.
Keep up the good work, I'll keep my eyes peeled.
Best,
Mark
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/254388.html
Osos sewer push goes on, despite denial of $5 million
Los Osos loses out on public works funding, but officials still hope to get $35 million from a water resources act
John Diodati, county administrative services officer, said the recently denied request would not delay the project or hinder future attempts at securing federal grants.
Mark says-I agree with that apportionments are grants as they are never repaid. Why not use federally compliant technology to apply for federal grant assistance in stead of the "apportionments" Greg Haas referred to? Sewerage does not qualify for federal grant assistance any longer, but the RECLAMATOR does(your story here).
Final design efforts would be made in 2009 and final construction in 2010, according to county officials.
Mark asks- Does "final construction in 2010" mean the project will be completed?
Finally there is this: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13758431&postID=328419737237381363&isPopup=true
Mark said...
Churadogs- I appreciate where you are coming from. Please understand someone has to stand against malfeasance. Technology and the Law make it possible. Please don't forget about California Water Law 13301.1 that was not and is not now being followed.
§ 13301.1. Assistance with order
The regional board shall render to persons against whom
a cease and desist order is issued pursuant to Section
13301 all possible assistance in making available current
information on successful and economical water quality
control programs, as such information is developed by the
state board pursuant to Section 13167, and information
and assistance in applying for federal and state funds
necessary to comply with the cease and desist order
---threatening instability and fines if the status quo is not maintained and the people not bled of their last dollar to feed the insatiable appetite of runaway County and rogue State bureaucracies.
Now a little good news:
After almost one year of writing and asking why USC 44/33 was posted
and that USC 33/26 was not , our group recently found that the USEPA
has finally posted USC 33/26 to its website!
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/index.html#caa
Of course we are encouraged by this act of "promulgation" and expect now
that many within and outside of USEPA will begin to follow the law.
Sec. 1251. Congressional declaration of goals and policy
(a) Restoration and maintenance of chemical, physical and biological
integrity of Nation's waters; national goals for achievement of
objective
We must BEAR in mind that our liberty and freedom are precious and that we are still a government -"of the people, by the people and for the people"- Abraham Lincoln.
Folks who work in government are our "public servants" constrained by laws.
Sometimes we forget these most important principles.
Demand integrity! Persistence and diligence pay dividends.
http://calhounscannon.blogspot.com/ for better idea of what is happening on the ground in the Los Osos/ Baywood Park "Septic Tank Discharge Elimination Project"
http://loviews.blogspot.com/
Steve is back!
Let Freedom RING!!!
§ 13167. Public information
The state board shall implement a public information
program on matters involving water quality, and shall
maintain an information file on water quality research and
other pertinent matters.
Kinda like the fox in the henhouse!
Aint nobody here but us chickens.
Now you are talking!!!
Don't listen to me bub, the writers of the sewer bible have spoken:
Two more draft technical memoranda have been released and posted on the
Project Website at http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/PW/LOWWP.htm
The TM's are on Decentralized Treatment Systems and Onsite Treatment
Systems.
The county has invested mucho duckets on this process, your hill just got WAAYYYY higher.
Good Luck!
And good-bye!
Good thing the RECLAMATOR doesn't "discharge"...
The Rodger Briggs letter is the basis of the WaterBoard suit.
Now we are getting somewhere.
Stuff that comes out of a pipe - split-pea soup, ginger ale, water, WHATEVER = discharge out of that pipe.
Toons: What comes out of a RECLAMATOR is the same quality water that comes out of a garden hose.
When was the last time anyone needed a "discharge permit" to water the garden?
The "regulatory" agencies are beginning to get their head around this concept so you won't have to.
The RECLAMATOR does not "discharge".
A leaking gravity sewer pipe does discharge untreated wastewater so many gallons per diameter inch of pipe per mile. I guess that is one reason sewerage requires an environmental impact report and "permission"/a permit.
I really am looking forward to the SLO County/LO/TAC addressing this most environmentally sensitive issue in public with so many people looking on this time around.
Aren't you?
ark said:
"When was the last time anyone needed a "discharge permit" to water the garden?"
When the water started out as sewage. Get over it mark, the Wrecklamator "discharges" whether you care to believe it or not.
Toons wrote: When the water started out as sewage.
How about a legal "cite" to back up your "claim"?
The RECLAMATOR does not produce a (d)"waste" discharge for disposal. The RECLAMATOR produces (n) "Recycled Water".
STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD
PORTER-COLOGNE WATER
QUALITY CONTROL ACT
WITH ADDITIONS AND AMENDMENTS EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2006
CHAPTER 2. DEFINITIONS
§ 13050. Definitions
As used in this division:
(d) “Waste” includes sewage and any and all other waste
substances, liquid, solid, gaseous, or radioactive,
associated with human habitation, or of human or animal
origin, or from any producing, manufacturing, or
processing operation, including waste placed within
containers of whatever nature prior to, and for purposes
of, disposal.
(n) “Recycled water” means water which, as a result of
treatment of waste, is suitable for a direct beneficial use
or a controlled use that would not otherwise occur and is
therefor considered a valuable resource.
substances, liquid, solid, gaseous, or radioactive,
associated with human habitation, or of human or animal
origin, or from any producing, manufacturing, or
processing operation, including waste placed within
containers of whatever nature prior to, and for purposes
of, disposal.
ARTICLE 4. OTHER POWERS AND DUTIES OF
THE STATE BOARD
§ 13160. Federal Water Pollution Control Act
The state board is designated as the state water pollution
control agency for all purposes stated in the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act and any other federal act,
heretofore or hereafter enacted, and is (a) authorized to
give any certificate or statement required by any federal
agency pursuant to any such federal act that there is
reasonable assurance that an activity of any person subject
to the jurisdiction of the state board will not reduce water
quality below applicable standards, and (b) authorized to
exercise any powers delegated to the state by the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251, et seq.) and
acts amendatory thereto.
Here is the link to the law:
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/water_laws/docs/portercologne.pdf
Please let me know when you find the term "discharge" without the word "waste" associated with it.
I want to be legally clear like fresh mountain spring water or water from a RECLAMATOR or right as rain...I sure could use your assistance.
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