County Crackdown On Sluggish Septic Scrapping!

Announced at the Basin Management Committee on Wednesday, May 20, the County has run out of patience and hired extra enforcement staff. On page 14 of 25 off the link below:

Enforcement: A list of properties that were not connected were transferred to County Code Enforcement and Notice of Violations were issued last year in Feb. 2019. That list was about 70 properties. As of 4/2/2020, the sewer service area had a 99.2% connection status with a total of 44 properties not yet connected. Of those, one is not required to connect because there is no structure (demolished), 24 have expired building permits, and the rest have an open Code Enforcement case. Expired permits did not receive a Code Enforcement case because those properties have their own noticing process through the Building Department which, if not corrected, could result in a Notice of Violation. The County has assigned new staff in code enforcement to Los Osos. They will be reviewing the status of cases that were issued earlier last year.

To quote from Elizabethan times, "The jig is up." I sure would love to find out the backstories on these non-hook-ups (like does sewer rage still exist?).

https://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Departments/Public-Works/Forms-Documents/Committees-Programs/Los-Osos-Basin-Management-Committee-(BMC)/Agendas/2020-Agendas/2020-05-20-LOBMC-Agenda-Packet.aspx 

Vacant Lot Vote Legal?

The Utilities Advisory Committee of the Los Osos Community Services District got a bombshell public comment at the last period of Public Comment at Wednesday's, May 20 meeting! Sewer Watchdog Julie Tacker spoke about how she brought an irregularity to the County on the recent 218 protest vote. 

There were not enough protests to stop the sewer rate increase. But people have not given up on trying to invalidate the vote.

Julie's Public Records Request brought out the fact that approximately 500 vacant lots were allowed to make a protest vote, which as they have no house, and no sewer, no one protested. These vacant lot owners were not allowed to vote in the 2007 218 vote when we voted to assess ourselves to pay for building a sewer—to the tune of $24,941.19 per single family home. 79.67% of the properties in the Prohibition Zone voted yes, and around 70% voted. So it was a hefty YES.

These were two different types of 218 votes though. The big dollar amount needed 67% yes votes to say YES, we would assess ourselves. The rate increase type of 218 requires 50% plus one to say NO, we don't want the increase.

The figures I have showed 978 protest votes where 2,833 was the count for ballots sent out. So, if one subtracted 500 (approximately) from that count, that leaves 2,333 non-vacant lot votes. There were 978 protests. 50% of 2,333 equals 1,167, rounding up. Then add the one to get to 50% plus one, you have 1,168. So, my bad math skills compute that there should have been 190 more votes to stop the rate increase.

Anyway, this issue has gone to County legal counsel, so we will see what happens.

Extra COVID Cleanliness Impacting Bacteria!

We do not know if this huge, increased use of hand sanitizers, bleach and a chemical known as triclosan,* is impacting our very own WWTF out behind the cemetery, but it IS impacting a WWTF in Washington state. Bacteria that do the breakdown job on the nasties are being reduced, so the effectiveness of said bacteria is less. Their treated wastewater is discharged into a river (which makes its way into a lake), our goes back into our aquifer, so ours is not currently entering an ecosystem as complex as a lake with fish, plants and wildlife drinking from it anyway.

"Most water treatment plants use a process known as biological nutrient removal to break down human waste and other larger compounds in water before it’s clarified, filtered and disinfected for discharge from the plant."

Read in much more detail about it on the link below and note the fabulous photo at the top:

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/may/11/improved-hygiene-during-pandemic-may-to-be-blame-f/

The 17% of Los Osos still on septic tanks might be subject to an influx of more bleach and soap than usual (and yes, more water too). What happens to water going back into the ground if the bacteria needed to break down waste is reduced? Guess we'll find out in the years to come if anything changed. The effects of COVID-19 may live on in unexpected ways.

* Triclosan has been banned for years in some products, but it is not gone!

https://www.webmd.com/beauty/news/20180705/banned-from-soap-triclosan-in-toothpaste

The Zombie 218 Issue

Awake and lumbering across the columns of our local Nextdoor webpage is a new hot plot to turn back our now approved sewer rate increase. A handful of posters are imagining that a group would trek the neighborhoods with a protest letter to be signed, which then somehow would force a take-back the vote that the Supes did on April 21 to approve that rate increase.

Background: There were only 978 protest votes where 2,833* were needed. A decided lack of the magic number of 50% + one vote to block the increase.

Exclaiming each canvasser need only get 100 signatures, as one poster stated, I immediately noticed a math problem, and believe me, I am no whiz at math. There were six in that conversation, the total needed would be 2,833 signatures. So unless there was heavy recruitment of neighborhood zombie walkers, each of the six would actually need 472 signatures. They would need a "plague" of 28.33 zombies to do just 100 each. (I had to look that up. I could have used "mobs, swarms, drags, or appetites (!) appetites?- but the word "plague" seemed fitting for the ghastly time we are now in.)

Or, they could set up at the Kiwanis Club of Bay-Osos See's Candy selling booth by the post office, and gather signatures that way. With permission of course.

What the Supes would do with all these petitions, I have no idea. The protesters idea was: "....the Board of Supervisors could have another meeting to lower the increase?" There was also the suggestion that Supervisor Gibson knew about the Pandemic before we did to try and get as many tax dollars as possible before businesses went under. (Perhaps unaware that could unfortunately have happened before the first tax bill arrived.) This same person called Mr. Gibson, "the mayor of Gibsonville," obviously unaware that Los Osos is not a city.

I always thought zombies died when their heads were removed or their brains were destroyed. I guess not.

*The math: divide 5,663 by two = 2,831.5 and add one = 2,832.5, well make that 2,833. I don't think half a signature would work.

Future Gold In Pee!

"....it's possible to extract 70 liters of fertilizer and 930 liters of water from 1,000 liters of urine within two to three days. That's enough to irrigate and fertilize 2,000 square meters of soil."

Sounds nuts doesn't it? I guess the world is running out of a key fertilizer ingredient phosphorus, and instead of destructively tearing into the earth as they do in Morocco, China, Jordan, South Africa and countries in the Western Sahara to find this stuff, we can mine it right at home! (I had to find a conversion for liters which makes me a bit nuts that my education was so deficient—anyway, the word reminded me of the capacity in a British car engine especially if spelled "litres"—3.7854118 liters equals one gallon.....which reminded me of my first car, a 1957 Mark VIII Jaguar, saloon model [3.4 litres] for which I paid only $800. You don't want to know just when that was.)

The word "struvite" appears in the article. Had to look that up too.

"Struvite is the most common mineral found in urinary tract stones in dogs, and is found also in urinary tract stones of cats and humans.”

Further research revealed that this stuff clogs up the pipes in lift stations, just not urinary tracts!

I found that out watching the video link below. Prepare to isolate yourself elsewhere if anyone around you is sleeping. I laughed out loud a full two minutes until my trachea squeaked. It was the music that did it. I'm still laughing, I can barely type! Clearly they should have consulted our county staff for music to accompany a sewer video (who nailed it)!

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yset_chr_syc_oracle&p=struvite#id=3&vid=d37f3ed61668a1be985fab07fde356d5&action=click

Back to pee. From the article linked below:

"Germany's Fraunhofer Institute is developing a process that would allow phosphorus to be separated from sewage sludge with the help of a high-performance ultrasound."

Take a look, this is fascinating! Maybe years down the road, we will find our little sewer plant is a teeny gold mine!

https://www.dw.com/en/phosphorus-in-our-pee-the-new-gold/a-53225198

The Sewershed!

Yes, that is a word. I heard it for the first time tonight on the TV news. 

I signed up for daily emailings of sewer news of course ages ago, and get them to learn of various technologies and case studies. Testing sewage to get an idea of the COVID-19 it might contain tosses around the words "prevalence testing," and "biomarkers," but the word "sewershed" is new! But only to me. Apparently it is a real word, but the way it is applied in big cities is different than how it was used by the researcher on TV tonight. So the word expanded a bit to not mean just the storm sewer piping, where it is, what it holds, and where it goes, but also sewer water fed into a plant through home flushing.

Just how much of THE virus is floating around in the murky waters at a sewer plant? Scientists in England and in California are attempting to find out. How interesting I'd say, could it actually even BE here? But we'd be a lousy town to test for two reasons. 17% of our town is on septic tanks, and we have so few cases or maybe none officially (although I doubt that), we get nothing but silence from the County daily briefs because they only post information on towns with five or more cases.

Anyway, back to the story. The idea is to catch virus spread. How much virus is in the sewage, and is the amount going up or down. Plenty of sewer workers in the US are freaked out by virus being in the sewage and have gone on strike or demand better protections from possible airborne virus bits, etc..

On another, happier note, a wastewater treatment plant in Portland Oregon had between 15,000 and 20,000 gallons of expired beer dumped into their plant. One would hope sewer workers might have grabbed a draught or two on the way in if it wasn't too stale.

Places To Poop Before You Die

Thanks BuzzFeed for making this awesome list (which I will probably never use). But there are brave readers out there I know, all two of you, who might just travel and enjoy!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/i-want-to-poop-there

Testing The Poop For Corona....

I don't mean the beer, I mean the virus, COVID-19.

Well, as of this writing, Los Osos has four or less Corona virus cases, so let's hope it stays that way. However, a much larger sewage plant, the East Bay Municipal Utility District to our north a couple hundred miles, is coordinating the effort of 10 counties to test their sewage for the virus.

Read about it here and do notice how cool the plant is laid out in the stellar aerial photo.

https://www.kqed.org/science/1963120/one-way-to-monitor-a-communitys-coronavirus-infections-raw-sewage

You might want to check out this tweet with a video, too:
https://twitter.com/Revkin/status/1253352981086351360

The Los Osos Syndrome

Okay, I just made that up. There isn't one. I watched The CHINA Syndrome...well, I guess at this hour it was LAST night right now. Great film from 1979 that holds up amazingly well. Jane Fonda, Jack Lemon, Michael Douglas. You probably know the story. A female TV news reporter given fluff stories stumbles onto a horrifying mishap at a nuclear power plant (the fictional Ventana nuclear power plant). Her videographer captures the accident when he should not have been filming, and the story unfolds from there. You can read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome

The gist of the mishap was a welding flaw, a small part was not maintained, a pool of leaking radioactive water, a cover-up. There were a couple of glitches with gages, and without fast work, the mighty plant nearly explodes, which would have left a glowing, ticking ember of a large swath of California. The film was released 12 days before the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster.

We in Los Osos have just concluded the fight over a rate increase this past Tuesday, and comments about that are still bubbling along on Nextdoor. Yes, there is anger, defeat, panic, all that. In that frame of emotional intensity on a rate increase to maintain our sewer plant, I ran across this article on a shuttered nuclear power plant, San Onofre, that had a sewage spill due to a worn part and a lack of maintenance. I guess that is what we are trying to avoid in raising the rates to have enough money to do maintenance and replace worn out parts or machinery.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2020-04-13/san-onofre-sewage-spill-linked-to-blocked-line-worn-out-pump-switch

Fortunately the only blow-ups around here were not radioactive. Nor, with the rate increase, are they likely to be a sewage spill either.

Sewer Rate Increase Passes!

It was an odd Board of Supes meeting. Three Los Osos Sewer items on the agenda for a meeting with no live audience. COVID-19 had conquered the in-person sewer angst audience displays. And it would take something of that magnitude to do so.

There were only letters read and phone calls, both recorded and live. Not one in support of raising the rates of course. Those voices made the silent, really silent, majority, so the rate hike passed.

There was quite a lot of tension. The vote was read and there was not enough votes to stop the rate increase. First, John Waddell had to give a report on the rate increase's necessity. (Silence from the online audience—now that was a first. Well, two firsts for a sewer meeting—online, and most especially the silence!) Then Supervisor Bruce Gibson laid out how he was approaching this. A similar rate increase had passed in Shandon, so he was going against the Staff Report, and insisting that Los Osos get the same time delay benefit to pay. There would be NO Board vote postponing the results of voting until the virus had vanished however, as the rate protestors had wanted. (Similar delay attempts had occurred on other sewer items in the past.) Gibson made a motion.

Supervisor Arnold was adamant that this "Shandon Delay" NOT be applied for Los Osos. The board had voted that way when they had no idea what these COVID-19 delays could mean. The board should NOT be so generous to Los Osos, the rest of the County should NOT be required to pick up the tab waiting for Los Osos to recover financially to PAY the new rates. 

Supervisors Compton and Peschong asked questions. Arnold reiterated her points as if a word hammer would move Gibson. It did not. County Counsel volunteered possible compromise positions. NOPE, both from Gibson and Arnold. This scene repeated too many times to make sense in a movie. Arnold attempted her own motion, and it failed to get a second.

Finally Gibson got Supervisor Hill's second. He had to restate the motion. 

"I move we find there is not a majority protest of the sewer service charge; that we adopt the ordinance and waive its reading; that we direct staff not to impose the increase until 30 days after the proclamation of local emergency has been lifted. We authorize the Clerk of the Board to get the certified copy of the approved ordinance and this other action to the Auditor/Controller/Tax Collector/Public Administrator no later than August 10th of 2020. We find the project exempt from CEQA."

All but Arnold voted YES!

And there is more I could write, but I am too lazy to look at my notes.

The Trib On Tomorrows Sewer Travail!

Have a look; things are really heating up for a chilly online meeting between the County and Los Osos sewer rate hike protestors!

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article242091706.html?

I hope I can accurately describe all the action!

More On Toilet Paper Cakes!

Yes, our local Tribune has a stellar article on the Arroyo Grande Bakery with a video and pix! Have a look:

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/living/food-drink/article242073426.html?

Board of Supes and Our Sewer

UPDATE! Here is a link to the page with details on the three items below:
https://agenda.slocounty.ca.gov/iip/sanluisobispo/meeting/Details/1256

The April 21st agenda of the SLO County Board of Supervisors holds a bounty of sewer items! Naturally, while the County is practically closed, the meeting will be online. Public comment will go on unimpeded - see below.*

1. Remote Viewing/Listening - Members of the public who wish to watch or listen to the meeting can find links for livestreaming the meeting at: https://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Departments/Board-of-Supervisors/Board-Meetings,-Agendas-and-Minutes.aspx

So here are the three sewer items on the agenda!

Items Set for Hearing:

2.  Request to set a public hearing to consider collecting delinquent charges on the FY 2020-21 County property tax bills for County Service Area Nos. 1 (Nipomo), 7-A (Oak Shores), 10 (Cayucos) and the San Luis Obispo County Wastewater Assessment District Nos. 1 (Los Osos). Hearing date set for July 7, 2020. Districts 1, 2, and 4.

Consent Agenda - Public Works Items:

29.  Submittal of a resolution confirming the FY 2020-21 annual installments of the Monarch Grove Sewer Capacity Charges and authorizing collection of the charges on property tax bills, Los Osos. District 2.

Hearings:

36.  Hearing to consider protests to a proposed sewer service charges increase for the Los Osos Sewer Service Area and if there is not majority protest, adopt the attached ordinance, which establishes the sewer service charges and requirements for the Los Osos Sewer Service Area; and find that the project is exempt from Section 21000 et seq. of the California Public Resources Code (CEQA). District 2.

Item 36 is the biggie. I lost count on the number of posts on this topic of the sewer rate increase on our local Nextdoor— I got tired of counting at 48, there were more, plus one poll!

The staff reports have not been posted, so I'll have to add that link later.

I plan to tune in.


* 2. Public Comment - The Board of Supervisors will still be accepting general public comment for items not on the agenda, as well as public comment on specific agenda items. Public comment can be submitted in the following ways: 

Persons who require accommodations for any audio, visual or other disability in order to review an agenda, or to participate in a meeting of the Board of Supervisors per the American Disabilities Act (ADA), may obtain assistance by requesting such accommodation 72 hour in advance of the meeting to the Clerk of the Board at (805) 781-5011. County of San Luis Obispo Government Center 1055 Monterey St.| San Luis Obispo, CA 93408 | (P) 805 -781-5000 | 7-1-1 TTY/TDD Relay slocounty.ca.gov 

Live Verbal Public Comment – At the start of the meeting or when the item you would like to speak about is called, please call (805) 321-0555. While you wait for your call to be screened, you will be hearing the meeting live on the other end of the phone. Staff will get on the line with you to screen your call, please be prepared with the agenda item number you would like to speak about and your name. Staff will then place you in a queue for the Clerk of the Board. When it is your turn to speak, the Clerk of the Board will announce your name and then you can speak for 3 minutes. If you are getting a busy signal, that means our queue is full, please continue to call until you get through. 

Voice Mail -Pre Recorded Verbal Public Comment - Call (805) 788-6638; 
state and spell your name, mention the agenda item number you are calling about and leave your comment. Verbal comments are limited to 3 minutes including stating your name. Please limit your comment to one (1) agenda item per message. If you would like to comment on multiple agenda items, you are requested to leave a separate message for each item. Verbal comments (voicemails) must be received by the Clerk of the Board no later than 9:00 a.m. on the morning of the noticed meeting and will be limited to 3 minutes per item. Every effort will be made to play your comment aloud at the meeting. However, some comments may not be included due to the time limitations. All comments will be entered into the administrative record and provided each board member. 

Email or Mail Public Comment - Public Comment can be submitted any time via email or U.S. Mail. Comments must be received by 5:00 p.m. on the Monday prior to the Board meeting. Please submit your comment to the Clerk of the Board at ad_Board_clerk@co.slo.ca.us or send comment. Your comment will be placed into the administrative record of the meeting and forwarded to each board member. Comments will not be read aloud or presented visually at the meeting. Mailing Address: 

Clerk of the Board of Supervisors 

1055 Monterey St. D430 

San Luis Obispo, CA 93408.

COVID-19 Cruise Ship Sewer Woes

This story came across some news feed or other March 30, 

Coronavirus Cruise Ship Is Still Anchored on the Bay. Handling Its Sewage Is a Chore

https://www.kqed.org/news/11808915/coronavirus-cruise-ship-is-still-anchored-on-the-bay-handling-its-sewage-is-a-chore

YIKES!

Last December I was boarding a cruise ship myself (a prettier one than the one in the story I'd have to say). I was on a dock in Sydney, Australia. Lucky for me, the sewer blog writer, as I was going up the gangway—slowly—there were a lot of us—what would I see, but sewage being sucked out of the ship! I got these photos with my phone (and a lot more, but I won't tire you with too many). This process is a lot easier than that described in the article above!

 (Click image to enlarge.)

I took a video too. Wish I had let it record a bit longer. The guy looks kind of tired after a while.....

Tunnel Toilet

I found this by accident. Using this facility would be an accident waiting to happen.... Adding the tile though—very practical!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B26Dv5IA8ye/?utm_source=ig_embed

Quarantine Cakes - Roll Of TP And Poop Cupcakes!

Wish I'd thought of this, but then, I only microwave stuff from the freezer.....

Have an uplift, goodness knows we need it!
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/coronavirus/article241553476.html?

If you are on Facebook, look for Loft22 Cakes! 

With our ghastly and grim virus isolation, this is sorta like making lemons into lemonade I think.

Yes Virginia, There Is A Sewerfest!

Okay, I am ripping off the phrase which belongs to that famous quote from the New York Sun, September 1, 1897, "Yes Virginia, there is a S_____ C_____." I hope all three readers here are old enough to fill in the blanks.....well, not 1897 old, but old enough anyway. If not click here. Actually, click there anyway, to read a very touching story that involves a coroner's assistant, an eight year old girl and a a former Civil War newspaper correspondent.

Now, to fill you in on another great story—Sewerfest! This is a real thing! During the last week of April (since 1998), hundreds of people gather at the wastewater treatment plant in Wilkesboro, North Carolina for a four-day music event! Sounds like such fun! Too bad we don't have the space to run something like this at our plant! We could sell tickets and souvenirs! We could make money....to help lessen the proposed, and likely to happen rate change that sprouted—FOURTEEN protest posts (as of tonight anyway, up from seven on March 11) on Nextdoor.

A quote from the article below,

We sell T-shirts, coffee cups and other merchandise with the SewerFest logo to raise funds for different causes.

We dropped the ball on this one Los Osos. This was one philanthropic enterprise that we did not think to rag on the County to add to the plans! I did come up with a blog post mentioning Poo Pets which we could have sold, but I did not go far enough with that idea either. (I think they are no longer manufactured, the QVC page was missing.)

Well, have a look for yourself on the shindig—which may or may not happen this year I suppose, COVID-19 and all:
https://www.tpomag.com/editorial/2020/04/once-a-year-swarms-of-music-fans-converge-on-this-clean-water-plant-site?utm_source=campaigner&utm_campaign=TPO200325&utm_content=newsletter&cmp=1&utm_medium=email

Check out the Sewerfest Facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/SewerFest

Goleta Sanitary District's Open House!

I subscribe to a great sewer news feed, and a couple of days ago, an article popped up on an event that seemed like a lot of fun

"The (Goleta Sanitary) district held its second Jurassic Plant Tour to educate guests from neighboring communities about wastewater treatment facility operations. The highlight was a 30-foot-tall, inflatable Tyrannosaurus rex."

—have a read on the rest of it:

https://www.tpomag.com/editorial/2020/03/creatures-from-prehistoric-times-visit-a-california-clean-water-facility?utm_source=campaigner&utm_campaign=TPO200311&utm_content=newsletter&cmp=1&utm_medium=email

Guests received, "....plunger pencil, a squishable stress toy in the shape of a toilet, and a dinosaur notepad." (Now I have to go online shopping for that toilet stress toy!)

I don't think that this is something that we can do here, they have a customer base of 80,000, but the idea of a well publicized open house might be a good PR move sometime in the future, past COVID-19 of course!

Sewer Rate Increase Protests On Nextdoor!

Nextdoor, the online over-the-backyard-fence news for neighborhoods in Los Osos (and thousands of other places), has SEVEN DIFFERENT current posts on protesting the rate increase for our water recycling facility! That must be a record on any single issue,even the Morro Bay sewer, at least from the posts that I was able to see! But people have learned that posts sink below the waves if not commented on frequently, so this feels like a new way to beat the game for exposure, keep posting new posts!

Alas, this pales mightily as compared to what went on during the Los Osos sewer war! Table sitting, flyers, blogs, comments below newspaper articles, TV - but then, that went on for years and people had time to organize. It will be interesting to see how this goes, if people do walk their neighborhoods with protest reprints and envelopes, and they do get this on the LOVR/South Bay Boulevard readerboard, and they do protest on that street corner. Stay tuned!

Where Does Your Poop Go In Idaho?

Hey, that could be a song lyric! 

This is a fascinating video by Katherine Jones about the West Boise Water Renewal Facility that I found on the Trib website above an article on a sad, sewage spill in South County......

Enjoy!
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/environment/article233684387.html