Another Buh-bye to Rog

The following is a guest posting by Ron Crawford of http://www.sewerwatch.blogspot.com.  He’s been writing about all this for years.  Indeed, if he ever writes a book about The Los Osos Sewer Wars,  the tome will be longer than “War and Peace.”  Heck, the footnotes alone will be 17 volumes.

It’s certainly been a long, strange trip, with some fascinating crossroads, key points at which even a slight tweak, a slight course change could  have made all the difference.  But those course changes didn’t happen and the reasons Why they didn’t are some of the most intriguing things about the Hideous Sewer Wars. Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. And that flat, bloody, furry thing in the car’s rear view mirror?  That’s Los Osos, smooshed flat by the wheels of history.

Ann recently blogged  about how the State's long-time local water "quality" CEO, Roger Briggs is retiring this week, so, considering that he's been working in that office as long as I've been reporting on Los Osos (since the early 1990s. Roger and I go waaaaay back. He knows me, and I know him, and, in full disclosure, I'm not a Roger Briggs hater. I actually kinda like the guy. He's always been good at returning my emails, and picking up the phone. He just got http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2007/05/she-is-los-osos.html Jedi Mind Tricked  on Los Osos, like everyone else), I want to quickly join in on the Calhoun's Can(n)ons  Roger Briggs Retirement Party (and, hopefully/certainly, spur one of my new favorite guilty pleasures: the crazy anonymous comments that show up on Ann's blog whenever she posts anything related to "the sewer." [And, apparently I'm not alone on that guilty pleasure. Am I right, people, or am I right?... you know who you are.]))

Before the CDOs, before the Tri-W disaster, before AB 2701, there was http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2005/10/briggs-blown-opportunities.htmlmy one question:

Why in the world did Roger Briggs allow the 1999 - 2000 Los Osos CSD to waste two years on a non-"project" -- the "better, cheaper, faster" disaster -- that Roger already knew wasn't going to work?

He http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/exposed-karner-confession.html KNEW it wasn't going to work, and then he just sat back and watched it not work... for two over-the-top-disastrous years.

That was THE  bureaucratic blunder, in the entire  Los Osos sewer mess, and it was solely responsible for the next 13-years-AND-COUNTING of Los Osos sewer disaster, and no one  -- well, other than me, of course -- said a word about that act of  gross  incompetence.

And, just like I write in my October 18, 2005 open letter at http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2005/10/briggs-blown-opportunities.htmlthis link, had ol' Rog shown up at that 1999  Los Osos CSD meeting, where http://www.smartvoter.org/1998nov/ca/slo/race/109/ Pandora and Co. voted to kill the county's then-"ready to go" sewer project, and begin pursuit of the known-to-be-DOA "better, cheaper, faster" disaster, and simply said something like:

"Look, we all know that your gimmicky little 'better, cheaper, faster' http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2009/07/exclusive-sewerwatch-investigation-how.html Community Plan  isn't going to work. It will not be better. It will not be cheaper. And it definitely will not be faster. It can't  be any of those things, because it is not going to work, as we, and a bunch of other water quality types, have been telling you for the past year.

“Now, I want you to listen to me very closely. If there is one friggin' nanosecond of sewer delay due to your pursuit of that paperweight you call a 'sewer project,' we are going to start fining you, hard and fast."

Had  Roger shown up at that meeting, and said that to the brand new LOCSD Board, in early 1999, the past 13 years-and-counting of Los Osos sewer disaster, at an IMMENSE cost to the State of California, would have never happened, because HAD Roger said exactly that, at that meeting -- and this point is crazy-important, yet almost never discussed (well, outside of SewerWatch) -- the project would have simply, and logically, just turned back to the county's "ready-to-go" project... that was sitting right there... "ready to go," and Roger knew that.

Which means that, since early 1999, ALL of the delays of "the sewer" -- delays that led directly to, among many other disastrous things, those hideous, and highly embarrassing to the the local Water "Quality" Control Board, CDO's -- are Roger's and the Regional Board's fault!

He never lifted a finger to stop that known-to-him-to-be a disaster.

So again:

Why in the world did Roger Briggs allow the 1999 - 2000 Los Osos CSD to waste two years on a non-"project" -- the "better, cheaper, faster" disaster -- that Roger already knew wasn't going to work?

Which means that I also want to bring this:

http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2006/04/sewerwatch-cdo-defense-six-mirrors.html... to Roger's retirement party.

That's the link to my April 14, 2006, blog post where I suggest to the CDOers, that their defense should be to bring six mirrors to their RWQCB "trial," and then hand them to the RWQCB members, and one for Roger, because the CDO's were actually their fault for allowing the 1999 - 2000 LOCSD to completely waste two years on a "non-project" that Roger http://sewerwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/exposed-karner-confession.html ALREADY KNEW wasn't going to work.

And, frankly, it's a damn shame that none of the CDOers used my defense strategy. because, not only would it have been hilarious, it would  have worked.

So, happy retirement, Rog, and, a toast to no more "not happy memories!"

Cheers.

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