Los Osos Christmas Parade Poop Picked Up

Today, Saturday December 14, Los Osos held it's quirky, venerated, a little wild and crazy, Christmas Parade. Maybe you have to live here to understand the vibe. This is not your over-hyped, commercial-centric, big city Christmas Parade. It is hard to describe in words or pictures, it is a feeling. (One year there was a snail float, and that needs it's own post to explain what that was about.) Despite cold weather and the wind, the attendance was good and the mood was jolly from observers, at least from where I was standing. Newspaper publisher and photographer Dean Sullivan was there, so there will be a fun spread of excellent photos in the Estero Bay News.

However, he has better manners than I, so I don't think I will be scooping this photo away from him:

Yes, there were horses in the parade, and yes, they did what one expects nervous horses to do - doo-doo! So smartly, shortly after things fell from equine backsides, a courtesy custodian scraped up these articles! Very festive—the Santa hat and other red apparel and accoutrements!

I confess, I am rarely a pedestrian in front of Los Osos' largest shopping center, I always drive into there. So on my walk on that sidewalk post-parade, I spotted this:

Yes! Recycled water (under the manhole cover of course). This is one result from our awesome wastewater treatment facility (the brown stuff gets trucked elsewhere.) So most of this liquid product is pumped up to the leach fields up at at Broderson, but the County is contemplating its domestic use for us citizens. It would be good for the aquifers to not use drinking water to water our drought tolerant, but not water independent, landscapes.

This came up at a recent LOCSD meeting. General Manager Ron Munds presented word from the County that they were looking for a way to distribute this recycled water from a County purple-pipe fire hydrant manned by a theoretical citizen's group. The discussion had already concluded that neither the County, not the Los Osos CSD (and probably not the other two water companies either, Golden State and S&T Mutual), had the budget to pay workers to dispense water into gallon jugs or paint buckets, nor are there citizen groups to do this. (And how many of us have a pick-up/van/SUV with an on-board water tank?) 

A suggestion was made to Ron (by me!) to convey to the County for the County to contract with companies that haul water anyway - because with a local water supply available for local customers, they might start a subscription business for delivery, as many citizens have saved their septic tanks to hold water that was to possibly be available at some future date. Their further discussion was not uplifting, but there is more interaction to be had in the future. Finger's crossed.

Happy Holidays from us..well, me...at the 

Los Osos Sewer Saga blog!!