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/

Water for Willows

Some Academy Award performance whining has been served up at the Board of Supes over the past few months on the topic of the sewer project's dewatering component. And I put it in those terms as those whining should have read the documents that legally allow such a practice, but it seems they have ignored them, perhaps in order to emote with a more sincere pitch in displaying their anger over yet one more component of the project, leaving no stone un-thrown (so far anyway). In any case, dewatering is winding down as not nearly as much water as was expected was found, and the pipe-laying part of the project is 75-80% complete. No awards will be handed out.

One of the dewatering outlets is through a marshy spot surrounded by trees in Sweet Springs East. Today Audubon volunteers (such as myself) were assisting in planting native willow cuttings in this mashy area, which despite the drought, are now guaranteed the needed extra water for that better chance of taking root! Go willows!

If you look closely, you will see little green flags that show where the willow cuttings were placed. Click on the pictures for a larger image and click the triangle on the video (with sound) to see dewatering in action!

Water Board Meeting Notes

I attended the Regional Water Quality Control Board's meeting today in SLO. Staffer David LaCaro was giving an update to the Board on the status of the wastewater project. John Waddell, Project Manager from the County, was there to answer questions from the Board. The Los Osos regulars were there too of course.

The first and only public comment at Public Forum (comments for items not on the agenda) mentioned CDOs (Cease and Desist orders). You might recall those orders were issued because the LOCSD Board stopped the sewer project in 2005 after a recall election. These orders were "the stick" to get a sewer project going again as the Water Board was NOT pleased, to say the least. This technique was objected to by a group called PZLDF and they went to court to try to overturn these orders. They kept losing in court after higher court—up the food chain—but until they stopped suing the Water Board, the Water Board was not going to drop the CDOs. It finally ended, and you can read about it here, but since the sewer IS being built, the CDOs are meaningless and the desire to drop them was forgotten until now. The request was noted for investigation by the Water Board's legal counsel.

There was a report on a field trip to the sewer project by Water Board Vice Chair Dr. Wolff. It had been attended by two locals, LOCSD District Engineer Rob Miller, the Water Board's Executive Officer Kenneth Harris and board members including  Dr. Wolff. How this trip came into being is a bit of a mystery, as only a large community activist and a local developer represented the public of Los Osos on this trip. I looked back on Water Board minutes and my notes from a meeting on February 1, 2013 and found that Chairperson Young had directed board members Wolff and Hunter to a sub-committee meeting with the County at the that Water Board meeting to study the wastewater plans. I'm not sure what the nexus to this trip might be or why this trip happened. In any case, the report was glowing, that the project was coming along in an organized and clean fashion. Not what some Los Osos members of the audience wanted to hear.

Anyway, not to write a book, but the main points were these:

• On the water to dewater from the trenches, there was only 10% of the expected amount predicted;
• Some areas expected to have high groundwater had none;
• It was clear that both discharge to land and bay were permitted;
• The Water Board has an unclear, or not much of an, ability to influence the ISJ;
• There were 12 citizen comments and 3 agency comments on the Draft Basin Plan;
• The Draft Basin Plan has no timeline to meet the goals;
• The Basin Plan should hopefully be released in early 2014;
• Anything Los Osos water purveyors wish to do regarding water improvements requires coastal review;
• Dr. Hunter had multiple questions on everything and was asked by Dr. Wolff to give other Board members a chance to get their questions out;
• Private well metering was discussed in the context of getting accurate data for modeling the basin—the Board of Supes can issue ordinances forcing well owners to meter, but politically it is a burning-burning-burning hot potato;
• Walker Ditch (used for three weeks only) and the Solano pump station property are no longer needed for dewatering;
• The contractors are rapidly wrapping up dewatering, the flows average 50,000 gallons per day now;
• Dewatering water is going into a blackberry thicket and a eucalyptus grove where plant uptake helps to remove nitrates;
• The salts in the dewater water are significantly less than has the seawater in the bay;
• The dollar per acre foot cost on the recycled water being sold to the farmers is comparable to their pumping costs to give them incentive to use it;
• Once the resistant farmers see how well the farmers taking the treated water are doing, they will be encouraged to sign up;
• The Board was VERY unhappy getting Keith Wimer's hugely long Draft Basin Plan comments submitted 5 minutes before the meeting started; several Board members commented on that. The staff will read the document and make comments in May;
• Some of the public's comments on the wastewater project do not fall into the Water Board's preview;
• The Water Board cannot assist Los Osos citizens if they do not like their Supervisors, as they are elected;
• The Regional Water Board has no latitude to change the nitrate limit requirements (none at this time) in the discharge permit, those comments should go to the State Board;
• Mr. Young and Mr. Harris spoke to the public commenter's and Dr. Hunter's hoopla over the amount of nitrate in the dewatering water going into the bay—

 —the reason we are here today is because of the environmental impacts of the septic flows into the bay....any pumping into the bay is minor compared to what is going in there now. Any nitrate impacts to the bay (if there even are some) are transitory and will self correct (example; the Elkhorn Slough);

• Mr. Young would rather staff take up issues on saltwater intrusion than those around dewatering water's nitrates.

Great staff report by Mr. LaCaro and very helpful background information from Mr. Waddell, thank you both!

And that was pretty much it. (Meeting time: two and one half hours.)

Our new CSD General Manager was in attendance which was a good thing. Her professional, positive, friendly attitude is vital to the success in the relations between the CSD and the County on the subject of the wastewater treatment plant.

Infeasible Is Not A Dirty Word

Much ado has been made in the blogoshpere and public meetings of late over "dewatering." For those who have not chosen to fully live every phase of the sewer project, or prefer to leave water matters in the hands of the professionals, this water is that which is being pumped out of the trenches where the contractors are putting in the sewer pipe in the low lying areas. It is important to know that 1) You cannot lay and seal the pipe in water; 2) Anywhere from 300,000 gallons to 1 million gallons of water is going into the bay DAILY as a matter of natural course.

The County and contractors have been under fire by certain long-standing sewer critics for not using all of that water for recharge (at Tri-W, or rather the Mid-Town site, gets as much as it can percolate), or for dust control on the roads. And at Broderson. Some of that water has been pumped into the bay as there has been no other feasible place to put it, meaning trucking it "somewhere" or running pipe and pumps to some of the town's drainage basins would have had huge logistical and cost impacts.

The most definitive answer regarding Broderson, the place the sewer critics are pushing to put it lately, came from the County yesterday in the form of a letter from Dave Flynn, Deputy Director of Public Works to Kenneth A. Harris, Executive Director of the Central Coast Regional Water Control Board. Broderson is not feasible. Read the attached letter to see why.

The point is, the low lying areas needed to be dug up when there is no rain. Broderson has been a very lengthy process with all of the environmental work that was necessary and the project could not wait around for it to be finished.

To habitually scream 8 to 16 million gallons of water going into the bay!, with NO ACTUAL figures is just plain wrong, not to mention the irresponsibility of churning up panic or anger in the general populace by false statements. We now know that since July, there has been on average 750,000 gallons of dewatering a day. The average land disposal per day has been 550,000 gallons per day; of that, 400,000 gallons per day to Tri-W and 150,000 gallons per day used for construction purposes. So an average of 200,000 gallons of water is going into the bay (keep in mind 300,000 gallons goes in there NATURALLY).

So what is all this about? Critics latching onto a plausible-sounding argument with which to bash the County. Frankly, that just sucks and I am pretty sick of it.

I can only hope that County will consider the source of this dissension; it is tiny, long-standing in hating-every-aspect-of-this-or-any-other-doable-sewer-project, and while annoying, very annoying, it is only a small part of the populace who is otherwise getting along good-naturedly with the bumps and beauties of the project.

Dewatering Letter, To Bay Or Not To Bay?

Thursday, September 5, 2013, the Los Osos Board of Directors will have a discussion on the sewer contractors putting water drawn from trench dewatering into the bay. This had been a hot topic by the usual Los Osos speakers at the Board of Supes. To be decided: shall a letter be written to the Regional Water Quality Control Board asking them to tell the sewer contractors to stop putting water in the bay?

Two contractors ARB (access their early dewatering plan here*) and W.A. Rasic (access their early dewatering plan here**)  have needed to pump water out of the ground while digging trenches so that pipe can be safely installed. The water you see the contractors spraying on the roads for dust control is from the trenches. Water has been unloaded onto the Mid-Town Property (formerly known as Tri-W) by ARB and according to their plans, more water is to go to the Fairchild retention basin. Some water has been going down culverts as well, but quantity and source are unclear.

The comprehensive Dewatering Plan written by CDM Smith was released in March of 2012, but not until recently were the crews in the areas where dewatering needs to occur.

That plan states on page 1 (color emphasis mine),

"This report has a preliminary recommendation to use a four-stage approach. The first stage is to use water for construction use (dust control, etc.) since no groundwater retention sites will be available when work starts. Stage two would continue to utilize construction use and would add the new Mid-Town retention site and the existing retention basin sites for groundwater disposal while the Broderson leachfield system and the recycled water pipeline from the treatment plant to the Broderson effluent disposal site are being constructed. During stage three, when the Broderson leachfield site and the recycled water pipeline have been constructed, both the Mid-Town retention site and the Broderson leachfield site will be operational and construction of the gravity collection system and pump stations and force mains can then proceed with the necessary dewatering. The intent would be to pump discharged groundwater to the Mid-Town and public retention basins for land disposal and Broderson for back-up. Discharge to the Mid-Town and existing public retention sites augmented with the Broderson leachfield site appears to be a viable and cost-effective means to dispose of the anticipated flows. Flow estimates range from approximately 620 to 1,300 gpm for one dewatering area, and 2,500 to 4,900 gpm for four concurrent areas throughout construction. Groundwater production in excess of 6,500 gpm would require a fourth stage involving agricultural reuse along Clark Valley Road. This would be necessary only if the groundwater production exceeds what could be disposed of with the combined capacity of the construction use plus Mid-Town and existing retention sites plus Broderson leachfield site. Treatment and disposal to the storm drains are a possible optional disposal method."

This plan went before the Regional Water Quality Control Board September 6 & 7, 2012.

For background, the perched aquifer and upper aquifer are overfilled due to septic discharges and are presently dumping an estimated one million gallons into the bay daily and have been doing so for years (more conservative estimates are for 300,000 gallons per day). I asked John Waddell if this would stop when the sewer has been running for a while. He said no, there would still be some discharge. So some amount would seem to be a permanent condition.

The Regional Board has sent a letter to the County concerning this water August 7, 2013. There were many questions on the W.A. Rasic plan and just two on the ARB plan. I can't find this letter online or I would provide a link. No where in the letter does the Water Board accuse the contractors of malfeasance or illegal discharge.

Rasic needs to fill out their dewatering intentions in order of importance and more fully. Both ARB and Rasic need to explain their contingency plans for rainy season.

Questions for the LOCSD board should revolve around the information they divulge with their own meeting with County staff***. Has water actually been discharged to the bay and how much? How much water is actually being pumped out of the trenches? Have ARB and Rasic updated their plans to accommodate the questions by the Water Board? If not, when will this be done? If discharge to the bay is the only feasible option, when will the Water Board approve it? (October 9, 2013 is their next meeting as the September meeting was cancelled.) When is Broderson going to be ready to receive water? Once questions are answered, the need for a letter will emerge (or not). And a refutation of some of the really infeasible ideas, such as trucking water off site to unnamed destinations should be put to rest.

Given the information above on the disposal options, the bay may be our last hope if there is just too much water. But given the amount already leaking into it DAILY, panic as to lost water supply might be just another angry disapproval for this wastewater treatment plant by certain long-time critics than a dangerous condition for our water companies.


* June 14, 2013 is a more current plan, unfound online.

**July 23, 2013 is the date of the current plan but I couldn't find it online.

*** Only two Directors met with staff, so it was not a violation of the Brown Act.

Dewatering at Mid-Town (Tri-W for Old Schoolers)

Read the latest Dig Los Osos post which explains what is going on at Mid-Town:

http://www.diglososos.com/2013/07/25/dewatering-at-mid-town/

If you want to read the dewatering plan, click here.

Los Osos Dewatering Update at CC Regional Water Quality Control Board

Friday, February 1, 2013, David LaCaro will give a technical/status update report of the Los Osos dewatering plan.