LOWWP Update July 2014

The County has posted a new update! Check out all that cool rebar and see what is inside of the pump stations and generator buildings! Find it all at this link!

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/PM+Monthly+Update+July+2014.pdf

Vacuum Toilet, The Coast Starlight

In case you were wondering how this looks in a Superliner Bedroom, here you go!

And here is how IT goes.....vacuum!

The Best Places to Pee, Portland

When in Portland....pee as the hip Portlanders do!

I found this unlikely book in a magazine called Portland and had to check out the book's website:

http://thebestplacestopee.com/purchase-the-best-places-to-pee/

I'll have to order this when I get home, I'm sure I'll be back in Portland. It is quite a fabulous town for things other than peeing, although there are a LOT of micro breweries around here which lend the need to!

(I'm not sure one could make a book out of all the public places to pee in Los Osos however, but maybe a small pamphlet.)

A Different View....

A few days ago I traveled by train from San Luis Obispo to Portland, Oregon. It was quite an enjoyable trip! So of course when you have a sewer blog, you tend to notice things out the window such as wastewater treatment plants that might just blend into the background for the casual viewer. This is a slice of SLO County that you don't get from a road trip!

First, I concluded that this must be the wastewater treatment facility for Cuesta College and The Men's Colony, as after the plant, the very next thing was The Men's Colony. I couldn't find a website for the plant itself but the plant is visible from Google Earth if you'd like an overhead.

I caution you that these are dirty train windows with added glare, not a crusty camera lens.

On the way to the next point of interest is this blocked off tunnel. Click on the image below and look at the lower left portion, a heads up for what is coming up next.

The Atascadero Wastewater Treatment Plant.

To learn more about the Atascadero Wastewater Treatment Plant, click the link below:
http://www.atascadero.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=644&Itemid=1666

Then we have an unknown spoutage shot. It is in San Miguel and right by Courtside Cellars. Not sure who it belongs to as Courtside is a pretty big operation and probably has a fair amount of wastewater to deal with, and there is a certain joyous feel to the spritz!

I hope to find more shots on the way back. I confess, I missed some from towns along the way north.

The Measure B Blot on CSD Agenda

Measure B! Remember that moldy corpse from the past, say 2005-ish? Well, if you don't, just read about it off this link. I find it too painful to go over one more time! It would be fair to say it cost the district thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in legal feels and, finally, it was declared invalid. Measure B stopped the $154 million sewer to bring us, when the County accepted the sewer project from the State, an $183 million sewer. "We Delay, We Pay" was the slogan back then and boy, has that ever been true. Look at the sewer cost history if you can stand to.*

Anyway, on the September 4, 2014 Closed Session portion of the Los Osos CSD agenda, Measure B once again rises from the dead invoked by the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The agenda item reads:

2. A.
RWQCB v. LOCSD in SLO Superior Court (CV051074) - Injunctive Relief Measure B

Well, we all know that what goes on in Closed Session, remains in Closed Session and we very seldom know what goes on in there. I tried to find that case on the SLO County Superior website, but no luck. Really, the definitions online for "injunctive relief" don't quite make sense here.

So we are left with speculation as to why this is here. Maybe this is simple housecleaning to discuss closing out the books on this? That is my hoped for wish.



*This is a copy & paste from a Word document that I got from Sorrel Marks at the Regional Water Quality Control Board:

Los Osos Wastewater Project – Timeline and Project Costs Increases

Date     Project Cost     Basis of Delays & Cost Estimates

1984    $34.6 million   Phase II Facilities Planning Study by Brown & Caldwell

1987    $48.5 million   Final Los Osos Wastewater Project EIR by The Morro Group

1991                                                    CAWS v. SLO County & RWQCB (Superior Court)*

1992                                                    CAWS v. SLO County (Superior Court)*

1995    $62.3 million   Los Osos Wastewater Study Task G Report on Detailed Evaluation of

Alternatives by Metcalf & Eddy

1997                            Supplemental EIR addressing treatment plant locations

1997                                                    TAPPS Appeal Coastal Development Permit to Coastal Commission

1997                                                    Coastal Commission requires additional Alternatives Evaluation

1997                                                    CAWS v. SLO County (Superior Court)*

1999                                                    CSD formed, begins new project development

2001    $84.6 million   Final Project Report by Montgomery Watson

2001                                                    Coleman v. Los Osos CSD (Superior Court)*

2001                                                    Keller v. Los Osos CSD (Federal Court)*

2001                                                    Keller v. Los Osos CSD (Federal Appeals Court)*

2002                                                    Keller v. Los Osos CSD (request for en banc review)*.

2002                                                    Grand Jury Investigation Report*

2002                                                    CASE v. California Coastal Commission (Superior Court)*

2003    $93 million                  50% Design cost estimate       

2004                                                    Cal Cities v. RWQCB & Los Osos CSD (Superior Court)*

2004                                                    CCLO/CASE Appeal Development Permit to Board of Supervisors

2004                                                    CCLO/CASE/Bhuta Appeal Development Permit to Coastal Commission

2004    $110 million    Redesign cost estimate

*All litigation has been ruled in favor of the wastewater project

CCLO = Concerned Citizens of Los Osos

CASE = Citizens for Affordable and Safe Environment

CAWS = Citizens for Affordable Wastewater Systems

TAPPS = Taxpayers Against Percolation Ponds

Sewer Plant Construction Site Tour!!

September 25, 2014: Public Tour of the Water Recycling Facility construction site from 5pm to 6pm.  For more information and to sign up to attend, contact Rosalyn Piza at rpiza@co.slo.ca.us or (805) 788-2759.

This was copied and pasted right off the County's Los Osos Wastewater Treatment Plant website website at:

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/PW/LOWWP.htm

Make your appointment now! Plus, scan the website if you have not done so in a while!!

Sewer-Water, the County's New Website!

Part of the Los Osos sewer project are the mandatory-for-hook-up to the sewer water conservation measures. The County just put up a new website, http://conservelososos.org/ to assist anyone not yet on board. Everything is explained on what you need to do, including a video on how to install a new shower head! (Also a map of which areas need to do these measures.)

Needless to say, the sooner you are tricked out with these water saving measures, the more you will be saving our water basin!

Largest Latin American Sewer!

A behemoth sewer that will be ten years in the making in 2018 is being dug under Mexico City! A tunnel the width of a three-lane highway deserves a mention on Los Osos' tiny sewer blog. Read the story off the link below:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268779/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=gqCNRhIf

However, on a more alarming note, I found a fascinating article on Mexico City's water; drinking and sewer (aguas negras). I have never been to Mexico City, only Puerta Vallarta, Los Mochis,  Escuinapa (where the car had a flat), Tepic, (where I think I had some KFC for lunch) and Tijuana, (but I only got sick when I ate raw oysters in PV). It is sobering to find what can happen if you don't clean up your water:

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/05/mexico-city-water-torture-city-sewage

Video Lesson in Proper Roman Bathroom Behavior

To pick up again on the Roman sewer theme I found an unexpected video! Thanks go to the BBC's "Horrible Histories!"

Resolution 83-13, Apocalypse Then and Now

The resident turnover in Los Osos is probably low compared to other places. The only stats I could find was off this website http://www.city-data.com/city/Baywood-Los-Osos-California.html#b where 6.77% of this county's 2006 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2005. So what is correct for Los Osos today, I don't know.

The point being however, as it was with me when I got here, there is a certain percentage who know very little about about the sewer history in Los Osos and how it got that way. And there is a certain percentage of longer time residents who don't know either. Depending on who you talk to, there can be quite a variation in stories.

One good place to learn the still-relevant history, although it makes a difficult read due to funky typing and primitive and hideous scanning, is to read the actual Resolution 83-13 by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (Region 3). What is the Prohibition Zone and why do we have one?

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast//water_issues/programs/los_osos/docs/1983_09_27_memo_bp_amendment_res_83_13.pdf

The timetable for building a sewer was outlined thus:

• Begin Design November1, 1984
• Complete Design November 1, 1985
• Obtain Construction Funding December 1, 1985
• Begin Construction April 1, 1986
• Complete Construction November 1, 1988

Yikes. COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC!

The draft of 83-13, with a much easier map to see just where the PZ landed, is on this document.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/water_issues/programs/los_osos/docs/draft_res_83_12_000.pdf

The Staff Report for 83-13 is also illuminating, where the lot size to be excluded from "THE ZONE" was lowered to 1/2 acre.

Here is a tasty morsel from that report:

Adoption of this amendment will help prevent numerous problems that have resulted from on-site disposal systems. Water quality problems have resulted from systems located in sites unsuitable for on-site systems such as improper soils, areas of high groundwater, areas of high bedrock, or on lots that are too small. Inadequate design, inferior construction, inadequate operation and maintenance, inadequate local agency regulation, and a lack of consideration of the cumulative impacts of on-site systems have also contributed to such problems.

Also relevant is this document, Resolution 84-13, an amendment to 83-13. It adds that while the addition of 1,150 additional homes (but no more!) would increase the nitrogen in the groundwater, it would not result in the degradation of the quality of the lower groundwater aquifer.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/water_issues/programs/los_osos/docs/1984_01_19_res_84_13.pdf

Amazing how this lack of a sewer went on for so long. And how a lessening of the actual water supply from the lower aquifer was not though of at all with the addition to so many new homes prior to 1987. 

The whole story is pretty amazing. Not in a good way of course.

Sewage, Santa Barbara Style

When in Rome, or in this California-based case, more like the Roman territories, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, one should do as the HCs or HUs do. And this being a sewer blog, of course, one should look to sewer history as "doing" as the Romans did, sewage-style. This involves a lot of marble and trenches with sluices of water, as Romans imported their culture everywhere they went and this meant better toilets for Hispania Citerior or Hispania Ulterior. Not too sure if the Roman influence stuck by the time the Spaniards claimed California though.

Check this out:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romeancientrome/ig/Ancient-Rome/Latrine-in-Roman-Spain.htm

There was a marble counter in our hotel bathroom here in Santa Barbara, so there is still a thin slice of Roman style here today. Decent water-flushing toilets being a thicker slice, I would say. 

So, sewer-wise, what exactly is there here in Santa Barbara? El Estero! Watch this video!
http://santabarbara.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=300

(Watch the "Stinky Tank" in action!)

A very kid-friendly video can be found at this link, but it is much more detailed than the first video. I learned a ton! But the music was....way too peppy to be sewer music.
http://santabarbara.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=79

Want to know where this plant is? Take a look on a map:

The address is 520 East Yanonali Street.

Here is the home page for the sewage stuff:
http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/wastewater/estero.asp

Take a photo tour!
http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/wastewater/esterophoto.asp

The plant was within walking distance from our hotel (sadly, no time for a visual) and even closer to the swank Fess Parker Doubletree Resort. Both hotels are across the street from the beach.

What I did have time for was a photo across an ocean inlet of the exterior of the zoo, which is kept green with recycled water from the treatment plant.

Something's Fishy with Salmon

Tom Salmon had a Letter to the Editor published in the Tribune the other day. He is thumping on the LOCSD for issuing the water conservation measures (that were recently posted on their website and voted on at their August 7 meeting). Read their news release on their website.

"Too little to late" he accuses, then proceeds to slam them for not demanding that they sternly tell the County that they can't put the water he speaks of in the bay.

Read Salmon's letter here:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2014/08/18/3200944/too-little-too-late.html?sp=/99/181/182/

Salmon speaks of "treatable water." Treatable by who? Stored and put where? Could that have been done? Sure, but at what cost to the sewer project, and more to the point, what delays? Yes, delays, while the project ground to a halt to sort out where to put that water.

Actually, the LOCSD had very little that it could say about that water that he refers to—water sucked out of the ground from the sewer project trenching. Most of it was used at Tri-W—oops, the Mid-Town site—and for the water trucks to spray for dust suppression, and yes, some of it went into the bay! The LOCSD had even less ability as to what it could do with the water.

Offer it to the the avocado farmers in Morro Bay! Put it in at Broderson! Clean up the water and....well, I'm not sure what came after that. It not like there were a bunch of tanks to store it in. Or that people that could be lined up with buckets. Who would pay for the clean-up? The sewer project? The LOCSD?

He thinks that because the LOCSD is part of the groundwater basin adjudication, that they could somehow mount a lawsuit from inside of that—on the almost completed ruling (this thing has been going on for YEARS). How shortsighted that would be? Put years of work to actually manage the basin in jeopardy. The LOCSD is not the only entity in that lawsuit either - the County is a player, Golden State Water and S & T Mutual Water are in this as well.

He seems to be unaware that the District is emerging from bankruptcy. Money is tight and ANY monies not pledged elsewhere must go to water conservation where is is not happening fully yet, at the household level.

Three hundred thousand to one million gallons of water flows into the bay naturally, DAILY, from springs, seeps and an upper aquifer overfilled form septic tank outflow.

Naturally, the Water Board was bombarded with the sewer detractor's angst and asked the County what was gong on?

Here in .jpg form is the County's response (click on the image to see a larger size). Read where the water went and why:

You can also read my response letter in the Tribune to Salmon's unfair accusations:

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2014/08/19/3202157/litigation-expensive.html?sp=/99/181/182/

Need a New Career?

It's common these days to have two or more careers in the course of a working lifetime. Maybe you are sick of your job? Since this is a sewer blog, and since you are reading this, and IF you need a career change, how about becoming a Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator?

Read about it here!

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/production/water-and-wastewater-treatment-plant-and-system-operators.htm

http://www.cwea.org/crj_new_howstart_becomeoper.shtml

http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/operator_certification/oit_info.shtml

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/operator_certification/docs/ocr_table.pdf

Sewer Levels Explained and Dissed

I am intrigued by things digital, but somehow never got into gaming, yet anyway.  However, it appears that gamers have gone heavily into sewer scenes in their games (I recall writing  on Ninja Turtles some time back) and of late, there has been some backlash to these "sewer levels" (as they are called).

First, let's define what we are talking about here:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AbsurdlySpaciousSewer

Now for the anti-sewer level rant:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/28/neon-struct-first-person-stealth-eldritch/#comments

Be sure to click on the entertaining comments below the Readers' Digest ad for "27 Foods You Should Never Buy Again," and its accompanying photo of cheese—hard cheese, say like Asiago or Ragusano or a Grana Padano. (Which, if you click on the link in the last paragraph of the article called "15-tonne lump of fat and filth" actually, kinda makes sense.) Not that I have anything against cheese in moderation. I just hope this link is still there when you get to this article and that it hasn't been replaced by an ad more tailored to your interests in case it does not happen to be dissing cheese.

I know, I am straying far from Los Osos. But frankly, the sewer news around here has been rather thin of late. A good thing, I think. We really ought to expand our horizons beyond the conveyance of bodily wastes.

It Couldn't Happen Here....

....this is a drainage tunnel, we have nothing like this here, nor are we likely to ever have anything "drainage" of this magnitude, but take a look at this sewer art by Judith Supines in Queens!!

http://www.supertouchart.com/2014/08/01/street-life-judith-supines-sewer-sculpture-in-nyc/

Project Update June 2014

The County just posted the latest update on the LOWWP! Click the link to read the latest info!! The photos are amazing!!!

xhttp://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/PM+Monthly+Update+Jun2014.pdf

Today and Tomorrow at the Water Board...

The perpetual Closed Session item:

4.    Los Osos CSD v. Central Coast Water Board (San Luis Obispo County Case No. CV 060146 (TSO 00-131)

Perhaps, in 2016, when we are flushing and forgetting, the plant busy cleaning up the foul waters and ghastly solids that we are sending to it, this item will come off of the Water Board's agenda.....

I wonder how much they actually talk about this?

Meanwhile, in noodling around on things sewer, I came across the word, "sanitarian." If you are interested, you can read about it here:

http://www.neha.org/credential/