Fecal-Philiac Or Fecal-Phobic

Stinson Beach! Always a pleasure to share one of the well-written posts over here from the California Coastal Dweller!!

http://californiacoastdweller.com/2013/12/07/septic-tank-arguments-could-stinson-beach-be-the-fecal-philiac-pole-opposite-malibus-fecal-phobic-choice-of-sanitation/

I wrote those words above 2014 and never posted the blog blurb! So I thought it was high time to revisit Stinson Beach and see if they had solved their septic tank problem - just as we had! 

Well, they did, but not quite with the same solution. I found an article off the Orenco website on Stinson Beach! (Remember our old friends at Orenco—at every...single...meeting they could possibly attend???) Orenco may have struck out in Los Osos rather badly, but they hit the gold mine in Stinson Beach!

https://www.orenco.com/Portals/0/Documents/Article%20PDFs/Aug.pdf?ver=2018-08-02-145028-373

Pooh!

A kindred soul in sewer blog writing from Stinson Beach, California has thoughtful, brilliantly written monthly columns, far different than these frequent Sewer Saga slap dashes to keep my two or three readers up to date. Please visit http://californiacoastdweller.com or Pooh! as the title proclaims, and rummage around for some good sewer reads! One of my favorites is this one: http://californiacoastdweller.com/2015/03/30/1596/

It is comforting to know in some strange alternate universe sort of way that Los Osos is not alone in its 35-year denial of sewage contamination if still alone in the belief from back in the bad old days that we had "magic sand," thereby eliminating the need to treat waste differently than septic tanks, cramed eight to twelve per acre as they are. That I think is still unique.

Well, we now face millions in payments, not just for our spiffy new sewer plant which will be online next year, but for all the water infrastructure changes that we will also have to pay for due to wrecking our water supply that is pooled beneath our town. I'm sure some day I will stop being dazed by this amazing lack of connecting the dots between leach fields and the water supply beneath them. These changes must be made, cost what they may as there is no alternate water supply.

The average income in Stinson Beach is $100,000, considerably less* than that in Los Osos. Once SB is sewered, there will not be a mass exodus from those unable to afford their homes. The exodus from Los Osos, long predicted by the sewer deniers when it was $29 million cheaper than now and earlier, costing far less than that, will likely come to pass. People with rentals are raising rents right now and homes that are big time fixer uppers are selling for quite generous prices. Well, at least those forced out will have a lucrative goodbye, I guess that is the rather sad upside. I just doubt that all of these people are the ones responsible for causing this economic disaster. The ones that are will never admit it and they will continue to live here.

*Correction! Oops - meant to say MORE there! Thanks for the catch gentle reader!

Septic Hell

Well! An article coming in from a news feed, which in the avalanche of E-mail I get, I oddly chanced to open on my phone days ago (most of these go unopened, depending on the stuff-to-do load), the link to which I almost lost six times, has turned into a delightful discovery! Someone as sewer crazed as I, but unfortunately trapped in that special hell of septic tanks run amok, has written about it, and in a most entertaining way! This person lives in Stinson Beach.

Stinson Beach, a pricy, swanky community north of San Francisco, actually isn't so different from Los Osos. Tidal flats, off the beaten path, some parts beautifully fixed up, others not so much....I just took a Google Earth drive through it. It is greener. But not more beautiful. They built on their sandpit and ours is pristine. And Montaña de Oro is so breathtaking.... I could go on, but all two of you readers already know about that I'd bet.

Take a look at these blog quotes about Stinson Beach and see if you see any similarities to Los Osos:

“……a deliberate decision by the community of Stinson Beach to control population growth by declining to modernise their system of waste disposal.” 

“The simple answer is that through the process of community meetings and a bond vote in a special election, the residents of Stinson Beach rejected over 10 different sewer plans and chose the alternative of onsite systems.” 

"… which also happens to be a place where the sandy soil makes for an operating environment not ideal for septic systems – and increases the likelihood that they will fail?" *** (I know, I know, WE have MAGIC sand, not that ordinary kind! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!)

http://californiacoastdweller.com/a-new-page-that-does-not-move/ 

Do have a look at these particularly entertaining posts!

http://californiacoastdweller.com/2015/04/30/1668/

http://californiacoastdweller.com/2015/03/30/1596/

Catch them all here:

http://californiacoastdweller.com/tag/stinson-beach-septic-problems/

Recent improvements to the public beach part of Stinson are described here:

http://www.ptreyeslight.com/article/golden-gate-hears-concerns-over-stinson-beach-septic-overhaul

A Stanford Study can be found here:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/may/septic-wastewater-sea-052010.html

The colossal question is—why is their Regional Water Quality Control Board AND the Coastal Commission not all over them they way that they were with us? Maybe because they are only polluting the ocean, and we.....wee wee right into our water supply which sits below our septic tanks? But then, they have a population of a mere 632....and we a robust 14,200.

I checked out their water supply and I found that their situation is quite a bit different from ours:

The Stinson Beach water supply is provided by two types of sources: surface water and ground water. Surface water is supplied by the Fitzhenry, Black Rock, and Stinson Gulch Creeks. Ground water is supplied by Steep Ravine, Alder Grove, Ranch, and Highlands Wells, which operate intermittently. The collected raw water is piped to the Laurel Treatment Facility. The water is then processed by our New Pall Membrane Filters which consist of two parallel units, each rated at 100 gallons per minute. Sodium hypochlorite (chlorine) is added after filtration for disinfection purposes.

http://stinson-beach-cwd.dst.ca.us/quality.html 

Happy Reading!!