The Interlocutory Stipulated Judgement, or the “ISJ” as it is acronym-ed, is our Los Osos water basin’s long-awaited fate cradled in the protective and silent arms of the court. As with anything pertaining to water in Los Osos, its creation has been fraught with angst, speculation and criticism. The final document of this judgement, to be called The Basin Plan, is still only in draft form after this whole thing was launched by a lawsuit 2004. Updates have been given sporadically to the Los Osos public and various agencies over the years. Needless to say at this point, our to-be-cleaned-and-reused “sewer water” plays a large part in this watery vision that floats out somewhere after 2016 on into infinity.
Much was made about the update of the ISJ that the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board had requested for their September 25-26, 2014 meeting. The usual-suspects-in-the-sewer-complaint-department were out in full force, not only at that meeting, but to complain about what happened at the RWQCB meeting at the following Los Osos CSD meeting, the following LOCAC meeting, and of course, at the September 30 Board of Supervisors meeting. They were furious at the County for not attending the meeting, they were furious at our CSD for having no representative there to give an explanation of the ISJ, they were furious at our District 2 Supervisor for not being at that meeting as well! Just FURIOUS!
(I will confess, it was a relief to get a new topic for those perennial complainers to yammer about. I wish I could have been at the RWQCB meeting myself, but I was out of the country.)
So, curious to know about what actually happened at that RWQCB meeting that I missed without the political spin, I have been looking daily for the minutes from that meeting. (This was at the same meeting where the CDOs were lifted from the 38 property owners.) Today I hit the jackpot!
Here is a photo of how the Water Board described that part of the meeting in their minutes:
See the minutes in person here:
OR,
You can hear this part of the meeting for yourself off this link:
You would never have known that it was a hair-on-fire moment from the politely cloaked froth and spittle soft-balled by the Usual Suspects at that meeting. The cloaking of course came off in the other meetings where the Usual Suspects felt more comfortable to project their true personas, finely crafted from years of rage and imagined authority. It was particularly hilarious to hear their supplications to the almighty Water Board for them step in and get this ISJ on track, helpfully offering up all sorts of regulatory sounding tools that the Water Board does not possess. These same persons cursed and vilified this very same Water Board over the Cease and Desist Orders they issued a few years back which they claimed were put in place to force residents to vote for an assessment to pay for a sewer! The overused but apt word “schizophrenic” comes to mind.
You’d have thought that the Water Board was either weeping profusely or sharpening hatchets for an attack on County offices from the Usual Suspects' interpretations on how the Water Board felt during the subsequent, other meetings. It did neither.
Water Board Section Manager Harvey Packard thought the reason given for the lack of response by the ISJ participants to the Water Board’s request for information, “confidentiality,” was a smoke screen. I have my own assessment: giving any free proprietary information in public to the Complaint Department would be tantamount to providing fire bombs for one’s own imminent destruction in a hideously painful and prolonged way.
We should have known if any update on the Los Osos basin situation was given at the Water Board's November 14-15 meeting as direction was given to staff to come back at that meeting with new information, and those audio recordings have already been posted, but I have found nothing. Nor were there any speakers at Public Comment.
