Ripley Writes To The CC, But Is Anyone Listening?

The following excerpt will be/is part of the “public comment presented” to the Coastal Commissison for their Hearing tomorrow. Fifty million dollars will buy a lot of bananas. It’s also strange that the CC says they’re interested in “cost,” but is that anything more than window-dressing and/or an optional consideration? And what about the goal of competitive bidding as promised in the 218 vote? More window-dressing? More options? And what’s with the reference to “change orders,” which, of course, equals a no-cap, open ended, sky’s the limit cost.

Well, anybody want to lay odds on how the votes as to how “cost” and fair-bids  and change orders will fare Friday? Naw, me neither. Not here in “Chinatown,” at any rate. Done deals is done deals and if the community wants a more expensive project, then who is the Coastal Commission to deny them their wish?

Honorable Commissioners:

I am Dana Ripley, team leader for the Los Osos Wastewater Plan Update1

The process schematic of the 2006 Update Plan is very similar to the process schematic that I prepared for inclusion in the recently published “Water Reuse” textbook (McGraw Hill, 2007) as Figure 13-15. Thecaption of that figure reads:prepared in 2006 for the Los

Osos Community Services District.

Our final report was completed in August 2006 and was validated by the National Water Research Institute in December 2006. Septic Tank Effluent Pump (STEP) collection isfundamental to the “2006 Update Plan” and is, in my opinion, fundamental to the long term success ofthe Los Osos wastewater project.

Schematic flow diagram of comprehensive water reclamation and reuse plan incorporating STEPsystems for low-, medium-, and high-density communities.



A copy of this schematic is provided as Attachment A. It represents what I believe to be state-of-the-artin small community wastewater collection, treatment, and reuse whether constructed for a new development or for an existing community upgrading to central collection and treatment.

My testimony to the Commission today will focus on cost and affordability. CC staff recognizes the importance of affordability to Los Osos homeowners and businesses as follows:

The affordability of the project has been and will continue to be a major concern for the residents of Los Osos2


1 Ripley Pacific Company, Los Osos Wastewater Management Plan Update for the Los Osos Community ServicesDistrict, San Luis Obispo County, CA, Wastewater Collection Treatment, Storage, and Water Recycling: Beneficial Reuse of Water and Nutrients. Digital and hardcopy provided to CC-Santa Cruz staff on February 8, 2010..

2 Application A-3-SLO-09-055/069 staff report, May 27, 2010, p.2

The single largest factor influencing affordability is obviously the project’s construction cost. The estimated construction cost of the 2006 Update Plan prepared by our team is presented as AttachmentB3. For comparison, San Luis Obispo County’s latest cost estimate for the gravity-based system is presented as Attachment C4

Based on my review of the two construction cost budgets, assuming service to both developed and undeveloped properties and cost escalation to 2010 dollars, the cost difference between the two systems is at least $50 million. That is, the 2006 Ripley Update Plan cost utilizing STEP collection technology is at least $50 million less than the cost for the County’s gravity-based collection, treatment, and reuse plan..

The actual cost difference between the two system alternatives could in fact be substantially greater than $50 million. For STEP construction, there is relatively low construction cost risk since excavations are shallow and impacts of unforeseen conditions can be mitigated easily. For this reason, the STEP contractor has offered a guaranteed maximum price cost basis to SLO County.

For gravity construction, however, construction cost risk is significantly higher due to deeper excavations and difficulty of dealing with unforeseen conditions such as high groundwater and archeological sites. The contractor will be required to fuse-weld at least 12% of the collection system and more if high groundwater is encountered beyond that already mapped. SLO County would be compelled to accept change orders for these unforeseen conditions which in essence provides for an open-ended contract, irrespective of what the winning competitive bid cost number is. Of course, the extent of change order costs cannot be known until project construction is complete.

I also note that the County’s budget for Broderson leachfields does not include a redundant disposal option as recommended by the project hydrogeologist due to the uncertainty of winter dispersal capacity at that site5

Based on the foregoing comments, it would be likely that the completed cost difference between the two systems could be substantially greater than the $50 million difference represented by the two attached budgets.

The Broderson leachfield system is a $6.1 million line item that may need to bereplicated at one or more other undetermined locations to provide sufficient winter dispersal capacity. Even with the minimum $50 million cost difference, the Commission is faced with at least two issues inconsistent with the Coastal Act if the applicant’s gravity collection system is constructed.

First, Coastal Act Section 30604(g) states:

The Legislature finds and declares that it is important for the commission to encourage th eprotection of existing and the provision of new affordable housing opportunities for persons of low and moderate income in the coastal zone.

3 2006 Ripley Update Plan, Table ES-5.
4 San Luis Obispo County, from SWRCB Credit Review Checklist, April 23, 2010, Table 1.1.
5 Spencer Harris, hydrogeologist, San Luis Obispo Planning Commission, June 30, 2009; “You’d better have capacity somewhere else.”
3Los Osos Wastewater Project Dana Ripley, PE CA Coastal Comm. June 11, 2010 De Novo Hearing Public Comment

A cost difference of this magnitude has a direct impact on affordability. A lower project construction cost will lessen the impact to low- and moderate-income residents living within the coastal zone.

Secondly, Coastal Act Section 30120 defines treatment works6

. . any devices and systems used in the storage, treatment, recycling, and reclamation of
municipal sewage or industrial wastes of a liquid nature to implement section 1281 of this title, or necessary to recycle or reuse water at the most economical cost over the estimated life of the works. .

, as follows:

Consistency with this section of the Coastal Act would require that the most economical plan be implemented, irrespective of any technology preference by the project owner. The $50 million difference in the two estimates would likely preclude the gravity system as a viable alternative.

I am aware of the applicant’s technology preference against STEP collection for reasons such as green house gas emissions, soil disturbance numbers, nitrogen removal, on-lot easements, and on-lot pumping. I believe that each of these issues can be resolved in favor of STEP collection given the opportunity in an open forum. It also must be reiterated that the STEP collection alternative was CEQA certified as environmentally superior in 2001, was determined to be a viable collection alternative in the current project EIR, and was intended to compete with gravity collection through the bidding process pursuant to the Proposition 218 assessment vote in 2007. Finally, the Request for Qualifications prepared by SLO County in December 2008 presented both gravity collection and STEP collection as accepted alternatives for interested design-build teams bidding on the Los Osos wastewater project.

Only with elevation of the STEP team into the competitive bidding process with guaranteed maximum bids can the $50 million cost differential presented above be ascertained one way or the other. The Commission should seek the assurance that the competitive bid process promised by the Proposition 218 vote will be preserved and that consistency with Coastal Act Sections 30120 and 30604 is upheld.

Including this requirement as a permit condition today will not only assure Proposition 218 and Coastal Act consistency, but will assure that project timelines remain in place to “maximize the project’s eligibility to receive funding support that can offset local costs” as urged by SLO County and your staff. Thank you for your consideration of these cost and affordability issues, and I am available for questions.

/dr

6 Definition of treatment works as set forth in Federal Water Pollution Control Act per Coastal Act Section 30120.

Tick, Tick, Tick. Running the clock out on Los Osos

The Coastal Commission will be hearing the Los Osos Sewer Project late on Friday, June 11th down in Marina del Rey. It’s the last item on the Agenda so there can be little or no discussion, just bang, bang, bang, No Time, Move Along, Nothing to See Here.

Over at the Rock is a nice little recap of How Things Get Done In This County. Once again, nothing to see here, move along, too late, Done Deal.

Actually, it was a Done Deal before the horse got out of the gate. Remember Noel King spilling the beans even before the TAC was formed? Oops. From there on, it was just a matter of a little grease there, a little spin here, orchestrated by Paavo and Gibson with a clueless/compliant Board (Move along, Boys, nothing to see here) and a clueless, manipulated community.

Well, that’s how it’s done in this county. And how it’s done when horses are put before carts; “Processes” are corrupted and deals are done. And, too bad for Los Osos. They’ll never know what the hard numbers would have been on an actual clean Design Build process and  project. Guestimates, but no hard numbers.

Well, thanks to a spun “public survey,” the corruption of the Design Build “Process,” the lack of real numbers, threats and electioneering by the Water Board, the homeowners picked from a carefully selected and limited list of options, without protest, so now they’ll get what they said they wanted: gravity system, sewer plant out of town, water reuse, affordable/cheaper/cheapest.

Well, sort of. The last wish –“affordable”—was never really possible. There was always just “unaffordable,” “really unaffordable,” and “holy s*#t! unaffordable.” And since we never had a real Design Build process, we never had real numbers so “cheapest” remains an unreal and unreliable “guestimated” moving target that can be manipulated at will. Which means that come Saturday, the community will get three out of four wishes. They could have had four out of four, except that Paavo & Gibson, Inc, were in charge of the show from Day One, so the community will be getting what they are given.

And, to give the devil his/her due, thanks to Sarah Christie and the Planning Commission, they’ll be given a much better project than the sprayfield plan the county was trying to ram through, (an expensive attempted ram-through that wouldn’t have happened had we been allowed to stick to the original (promised) plan of a clean process and clean DP. Sprayfields wouldn’t have made the final cut.) So, I guess we should be grateful for small miracles.

Over at The Rock is posted a glimpse of this game. Read it and . . . laugh? http://rockofthecoast.com/news/local/868-ogrens-mwh-gravity-bias-costing-los-osos-tens-of-millions

Yep, that’s how it’s done.

Your Sunday Poem

This one by Carl Dennis, from the June 7, 2010 New Yorker.

A Maxim

To live each day as if it might be the last
Is an injunction that Marcus Aurelius
Inscribes in his journal to remind himself
That he, too, however privileged, is mortal,
That whatever bounty is destined to reach him
Has reached him already, many times.
But if you take his maxim too literally
And devote your mornings to tinkering with your will,
Your afternoons and evenings to saying farewell
To friends and family, you’ll come to regret it.
Soon your lawyer won’t fit you into his schedule.
Soon your dear ones will hide in a closet
When they hear your heavy step on the porch.
And then your house will slide into disrepair.
If this is my last day, you’ll say to yourself,
Why waste time sealing drafts in the window frames
Or cleaning gutters or patching the driveway?
If you don’t want your heirs to curse the day
You first opened Marcus’s journals,
Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off,
Or, better yet, two tickets, as if you were hoping
To meet by then someone who’d love to join you,
Two seats near the front so you catch each note.

Wait, Come back, I was only Kidding

While people are having a wonderful time boycotting Arizona to protest their “Ask & Tell” policy on people who look like illegal immigrants, there’s an interesting story in the June 7 Newsweek by Arian Campos-Flores.

Seems that the fertility rate in Mexico is in decline due to an aggressive government policy on family planning, increased education for women, etc. So the demographics in Mexico are changing and their “excess” young baby-bulge population will soon wane and instead of excess workers looking for work, Mexico will end up in equilibrium and if the birth rate continues to drop, will end up in the same pickle America is now: overrun with aging baby boomers.

According to Gordon Hanson, and economics professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the 1960’s “the baby boom ended in the U.S., but it continued for another two decades in Mexico. So in the 1980s and 1990s, there were fewer new U.S. workers looking for jobs but more Mexicans. On top of that, in 1982 the Mexican economy suffered a debt crisis followed by nearly two decades of sluggish growth. The American economy, on the other hand, performed far better, especially in the mid-to late 1990s, when it was humming at full throttle and hungry for foreign labor. “If you look back at the last two to three decades, it was really an exceptional period,” says Hanson.

“In the coming years, the politics of immigration could be completely scrambled: Mexican migration will taper off further just as baby boomers begin retiring, in 2012. USC’s [Dowell] Meyers predicts that the American labor force will start shrinking in some parts of the country by 2015, and that as boomers reach old age they’ll create even more demand for workers: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arizona starts pleading for Mexican workers who can help them in their retirement homes,” he says. “The potential here is to totally reverse our attitudes toward Mexican immigration.” It’s hard to imagine right now, but if the numbers hold up, the crisis on our borders may end up abating on its own.”

Well, isn’t that the way? You get what you wish for and suddenly it isn’t what you want or need. Dang! So instead of hollering about Mexicans, maybe all us American Baby Boomers might start re-thinking job pools and just who’s gonna mow their lawn or change their diapers in a few years.

Take a left at the huge pothole and don’t’ call me in the morning.

This story is simply too delicious to miss: Lauren Rosenberg downloaded a Google map then followed the map to a busy four-lane boulevard without any sidewalks that wasn’t safe for pedestrians but our Dear Ms. Rosenberg continued blithely onto the busy road “on a pitch black night and received multiple bone fractures that required six weeks of rehabilitation” after getting hit by a car. And now she’s suing Google. Her lawyer said that Google’s map “created a trap with walking instructions that people rely on. She relied on it and thought she should cross the street.”

A busy boulevard, in pitch dark, filled with rushing cars. And apparently she didn’t stop and say, like most people do using Google maps, “THIS MAP SUCKS! WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING? I’M GONNA FIND A BETTER ROUTE SINCE THIS CROSSING IS LIKE TOTALLY UNSAFE!”

But no. Cross the street then call the lawyer.

Google claims they have a disclaimer on their website to the effect that circumstances can change and the maps may not be up to date. And if you’ve used Google maps, you already know that the maps are often goofy and will send you the wrong way or the long way around so the people you’re visiting always ask, “Why the heck did you take that rout?” and you reply, “Google,” and they say, “Ah, yes, of course, Google.” And, of course, no Google map can’t possibly be up to date vis a vis road repairs, washed out bridges, and other such unsafe areas.

In short, maps are marks on a piece of paper. They’re abstract symbolic representations of a reality that may no longer exist. Mental constructs, really. And for most of us, they only act as a vague outline. But not to our young Ms. Rosenberg. Apparently, the map was concrete gospel and now she has a lawyer and a lawsuit.

Ya gotta laugh. And wonder how her attorney would have framed a legal case if she’d been walking down the street with her Google map clutched in front of her nose and fell into a pothole.

Grab Yer Dog(s)!

Saturday, June 5th at 11 am  will be the official grand opening of the Jody Giannini Family Dog Park (Morro Bay, at Del Mar Park in North Morro Bay. ).  There'll be hot dogs, buns, beverages, dogs and fun.  The opening ceremonies will be near the dog park entrance. For further information, call Mary at 772-8259. 

The beautiful park has been open for some time while some additional work was being done, but now it's all gussied up and ready for it's grand opening. It's a beautiful grassy area with a separate section for large dogs and small dogs.  So, grab your best buddy and come for a romp. (Above is The Mighty Finn McCool deciding whether to run left or right or around in circles.)  

And While You're At It 

Check out a new national organization that helps people who can't afford to spay/neuter their pets.  It's at www.imom.ort/spay-neuter/financial-aid.htm .  There's a form you can fill out on line and the imom committe will consider your request and if you qualify, can either pay your vet or help pay the vet's bill.  So if you know anyone who needs spay/neuter help, please pass this information on.