I wish I'd taken better notes last Thursday night at the Los Osos Community Services District meeting where "THE LETTER" was the most anticipated agenda item. An agenda item with no staff report as a friend noted. Odd, but the reason became clear once that Item 12 came up.
Lacy said something to the effect of getting away from partisanship around the dewatering issue and just explaining to the TV audience the basic facts around water, like how much is an acre foot, so people in TV-land would understand what we all were talking about (wisely presuming that they are not all sewer geeks like the in-house audience). Sort of educating the public as it were.
To recap from my article below on this topic, "THE LETTER" was to be (or not to be) the desired result of the discussion on whether to write to the Regional Water Quality Control Board demanding that they tell the County to tell the contractors to stop sending that trench de-watering water into the bay. You can see how this would be a "hair on fire" topic for those who stopped the last project, (stopping the even greater conservation efforts than the current project that it afforded the water supply starting back in 2008. Imagine, huge water savings since 2008! That's FIVE YEARS!) That's right, I was being facetious. But hey, what's not to hate about yet another sewer project if you can do it with a water fight!
OK, full disclosure, I spoke right before Lacy did and I was the ONLY speaker to unfailingly support the last project AND this project. The other speakers that night ranged in opinion from denying that we needed a sewer to throwing verbal rocks at the Supes at their almost weekly meetings for not stopping this "atrocity of a sewer" that is being built now. So I don't really know if she was referring to all of us who were giving our partisan opinions at the lectern or just mine, which was shouted at from the back of the room.
If you are new to this topic, the contractors are de-watering the trenches in the low-lying areas. The water is being used on the roads for dust control, re-absorption into the ground at Tri-W—the Mid-Town site—and that water which has no place else to go is going into the bay.
The impetus for writing then is, as a water purveyor, to save that water and stick it back into the ground somewhere.
Some salient points for this discussion however:
• No one at the meeting knew how much water was going into the bay;
• Not one of the other two water purveyors was to be part of this letter, which brought up the obvious, "why not?" You'd think having just completed together a 300+ page Basin Report, on the future of ALL water use for Los Osos after six or seven years of work it would be odd that they would not act together IF the water supply was in jeopardy? (Weren't they asked? Didn't they notice or care?) Wouldn't the case to the Water Board be that much stronger if all three purveyors spoke with one voice? But then, if the water going into the bay wasn't quantified.............
In past weeks, some of the night's speakers had bandied about numbers like "eight to sixteen million gallons going into the bay DAILY!" at the Board of Supervisor's meetings, (those numbers given as a possibility in the Dewatering Plan for the trenches). At this meeting however, the number had been softened to "unknown" amounts.
I already see some holes in trying to make a persuasive case to the Water Board.....
Here is a much bigger hole. The Environmental Impact Report for the project (approved by the Water Board) states,
"The findings of this study conclude the following:
- The impacts of shallow groundwater disposal during project construction would be less than significant if beneficially reused during construction (i.e., dust control and soil moisture conditioning of backfill soils) and/or disposed to storm drains or storm water percolation basins in accordance with RWQCB permit conditions....."
(Storm drains in case you were unaware, go into the bay.)
In that EIR you can also find this chart of water lost to the bay:
Now, in the spirit of educating the public, an acre foot of water is 325,851 gallons. Sweet Spring (at Sweet Springs) flows at the rate of 292 acre feet a year, making the yearly gallon amount lost to be 95,148,492. That is from ONE spring. Ninety-five MILLION. And there are other seeps and marshes along the bay. Of course this is going to vary from year to year depending on rainfall and septic returns and yard watering and all that, but at least we have an idea in a report written by experts.
So down to the pumping amount observed at the trenching by the bay as mentioned in the meeting: One six-inch pipe with an estimated 20 gallon a minute pump. That is 28,800 gallons in one day if it runs 24-hours. But does it? How many days has this gone on? We don't know. But isn't it water that would be draining into the bay anyway?
The Water Board knows these amounts. Here are some tidbits from the final EIR (or FEIR).
Appendix Q FEIR
Page Q.5.2-1
Construction activities may require dewatering, however, the dewatering activities are not expected to substantially alter the quantity of existing groundwater supplies. Therefore, the proposed construction activities associated with the Preferred Project would result in a less than significant impact on groundwater supplies.
Page Q.5.2-3
Based on a review of the additions and modifications of the collection system facilities, the Preferred Project may require additional dewatering of the existing groundwater supplies during short-term construction activities within the perched aquifer. Based on a review of the additions and modifications of the collection system facilities under the Preferred Project, no substantial dewatering of the existing groundwater supplies within the perched aquifer would occur.
Please see page 4 of this document for what the Water Board knows about the project. Really, read the de-watering part! It is right from the pen of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board!
The LOCSD's letter was hastily drafted at the meeting and we don't yet know the final wording, but it basically says, "Water Board, tell the County to stop the contractors from de-watering to the bay and hurry up completing Broderson so we can put the water there instead." (Broderson is where most to the treated water will go once the wastewater project is on-line. It is close to completion.)
Did the LOCSD read the FEIR or the Water Board's staff report mentioned above? Will they look uneducated to make these demands? Would they ask, "where are the other water purveyors?" Could there possibly be any unintended consequences from this letter (where have we seen that before around a sewer project....), you know, like project delays, change orders, a longer time to complete the project? Or will the letter go unheeded, thereby giving the sewer-haters a new (old) target for vitriol, the Water Board!?
Is caving to the unfounded demands of those who brought us the last hideous batch of unintended consequences the best path for the LOCSD?
Well, good or bad, writing the letter certainly got those strident voices to calm down and blow the board kisses by the end of the meeting (those very same voices that had bashed the board at the prior meeting no less)!
So back to Lacy and her admonition about partisan politics. She may not know just how prescient she was with her wish. Who IS playing the politics here?
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