Grade Laser (more or less) In Action

Hypnotic!

Dig's Thanksgiving Post

The new post from Michelle this evening - the holiday schedule and a thank you!

Read it at this link:
http://www.diglososos.com/2013/11/25/holiday-work-thanksgiving/

Do NOT miss the photos at the bottom - really cute!

Starting December for Dig Los Osos....

......new office hours:

Off the Dig site:

Effective 12/1/13 office hours will be held only on Thursdays from 9 am to 11 am, or by appointment.

http://www.diglososos.com/contact/

LOCSD Special Meeting Today Cancelled!

I wonder what that means?

Sewer Geeks! Important Water Board Update!

Friday, December 6, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

Save the date, don't miss this meeting!

Central Coast Water Board

895 Aerovista Place, Suite 101, San Luis Obispo

See the agenda and related documents off this link.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2013/dec/Item_24/index.shtml

World Toilet Day!

Darn, we missed it, it was yesterday! Well, check out the link here to see what it was about. Be sure to click through all the pictures as they are rather fun! You can go out apparently to celebrate, or you can celebrate at home!

However, it is very sobering to see what the lack of sanitation can cause. An excellent book on the topic is The Big Necessity The Unmentionable World of Human Waste And Why It Matters by Rose George. A fascinating read.

Los Osos is having its own daily toilet celebration I guess, seeing that the aim of the World Toilet Day was SANITATION! Our sewer project is moving along swiftly in the attempt to clean up the disgusting fact of, dare I say it? (sure, why not, it's my blog), peeing and pooping right on top of our water supply! Ugh. UGH. UGH!

A major side note to the cleaning up of things beyond water in Los Osos will occur Wednesday afternoon, November 20, 4:00 p.m. at the District Office on 9th Street. The BANKRUPTCY. This meeting is for the directors to vote on transferring the solid waste franchise to the County for $2.8 million. Read all about the meeting here.

This quote out of the staff report outlines a brief history:

As a result of the District's termination of the wastewater project being constructed under contract to the District, the creditors filed a series of claims and initiated legal action against the District.  As a result of those actions, the District declared Bankruptcy in August of 2006. The total amount of the creditor's claims at that time exceeded $46,500,000.

The bankruptcy was finally, finally approved on October 9, 2013 and this transfer is the last thing to be done to conclude these years of stress and I'd say torture even, imposed by a clueless, feckless board on its successors and our town. Fortunately for us, the final settlement amount was whittled down to  a mere $11,396,505.

For perspective, the entire operating budget of the District has been around $4.9 million yearly, but with the income from the Solid Waste Franchise gone, it will now be less. The periodic rate adjustments to our bills will no longer be determined by our LOCSD board, but by the County. The $151,000 in yearly franchise income, flushed down the toilet as it were. And that is the event on our agenda for the day after World Toilet Day. Get the facts here.

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.

Another Sort Of Sewer Tour

Yesterday I posted a different sort of sewer tour. One that was lighthearded. This video is hard core, depressing. You might not want to watch it. Sewers have different uses. I guess these people are glad they have someplace to hide.

Anyone whining about what is happening here really needs a reality check about what happens in the other parts of the world.



Thank you Thomas Morton for making this video.

Plan Ahead For Your Summer Vacation in Paris!

I ran across this video on YouTube and thought we sewerphiles might like to view the sewer tour under the streets in Paris. This place has a sewer museum! I'm not sure that we could apply that idea here, but we do have a rather famous sewer history in Los Osos. We could sell manhole cover keychains, grinder pump coffee grinders (scaled down of course), sewer rats (ours would have to be pretty small, our pipes are dinky), and Eau de Toilette, a scent yet to be determined!



Thanks to Chris of Yellow Productions!

"Fatberg" in London Sewer

We septic tank users don't often, if ever, get a view into the tank. Because pumping is expensive, and we are sitting on top of our water source, most of us try to be mindful of what we put in there. But in 2016 we will all be hooked up to our new sewer, and since some of us are imports from cities where we really don't give much thought to what goes down the potty, here is a glimpse of what could happen, on a much smaller scale of course, to our spanking new pipes (try not to gasp or puke, or maybe just don't go to this link):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2417381/The-Fatberg--bigger-Londons-dirty-secret-grown-THREE-tonnes-just-month.html

So think before flushing. Our town's collective septic system at Bayridge Estates had a blockage on October 24 due to large chunks of grease and wipes. So now is a good time to start practicing good sewer stewardship as ghastly as that sounds.

Dig Los Osos Says Purple Pipe Coming Back To Town!

Check out the new post today:

http://www.diglososos.com/2013/11/01/work-installing-the-recycled-water-pipeline-heads-through-town/

Sleep in a Sewer Pipe!

I love Google Alerts! Look what it found at Slate Magazine:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/10/29/sleep_in_a_concrete_sewer_pipe_at_this_austrian_hotel.html

Dexterity, Giant Sized!

This operator is amazing—think he has done this a few thousand times before?

Sewer Work on Sixteenth

Similar to, but different from the reconstruction of the tanks on16th (and the street being torn up for the new piping that went with it), the sewer construction is the most exciting thing to hit 16th. OK, the broken unmarked water pipe near the bike path was high drama a few days back, but it was over pretty fast. This is going on for a while.

It started with the pot holing.

Then the street was unzipped.

Water applied at every step to keep down the dust.

Electrical wires lifted out of the way.

Coming up the hill.

Digging sand.

The point of digging, placing pipes. Rather a pretty color!

The trench boxes are moved around with surgical precision.

Tap, tap, tap. Then more digging inside the box.

Plates go down to keep the sand contained.

When the pipe is in the trench boxes come out. 

Note the lift in the back, they are pretty heavy.

Plates arrive to cover the excavation.

Look to the upper left at the holiday appropriate antenna decor!

There is so much more to say about the mind boggling dexterity of the equipment operators. How they lift, trek, nudge and tap these giant hunks of steel as though they didn't weigh tons.

And the fantastic project coordination with the many steps that require perfect timing between the different parts of the team—the guys constantly measuring, guys cutting pipe, so as soon as the trench is ready, in goes the pipe, the street sweeping and watering both with the equipment and by hand, new water arriving via truck, two trucks lined up to keep the dirt coming up and away from the trench, the dirt coming back to go into the newly piped section, putting on the plates with some hot asphalt to keep them firmly in place. Today is Saturday and the watering trucks came twice (while I was paying attention). 

I got nothing done Friday watching this oh, so, beautiful show.

September 2013 Progress Report Now Online

The County has newly posted the LOWWP's September Progress Report online—go check it out:

http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PW/LOWWP/document+library/PM+Monthly+Update+Sep+2013.pdf

16th Street Water Works!

Well, it was a tough day on 16th Street for both the ARB construction guys and our own CSD water crew (and for residents and one of the schools too). There was an unmarked water pipe (where have we heard that story before?) a tad north of the El Moro Bike Path and one of the big machines hit it. I missed the first part, the fountain, but will show some later shots of the event. I only knew something had happened because I went to wash my hands, two drops of water came out, then nothing.

The CSD crew had already jumped into action, Frank was running up the street to the tanks to turn something off and our other CSD water crew guys were locating the shut off valves to shut the water off, of which there were more than one.

The ARB crew had to halt work until the water stopped off course, but some brave residents motored out of the mess with no problem.

Fortunately the drainage project at the bottom of 16th had been set up years ago and it worked to get the water across and under Paso Robles down to Walker Ditch and beyond.

Once the water stopped, the ARB crew was all ready to go with a new section of pipe and two couplings. So as one guy said, "we have an upgrade!"

The main things about this, no one was hurt, no homes flooded and the repair was done amazingly fast. Sure, too bad about the water loss, but now that the CSD is FINALLY out of bankruptcy, maybe some money will be available to do some capital improvement upgrades which have been on the back burner for years.

I had two in-depth conversations, one with with ARB's Paul Gallagher, Project Manager and one with HDR's Jim Brantley, Construction Manager. They both were on top of the problem immediately. They both have had experience with big projects like this, so this was not anything new to deal with, they had seen it all before. We are in good hands, no question, these guys and their crews are quite amazing and we are lucky to have them working for us!

Looking South

Drainage at Work

The Hidden Pipe

Looking North

All Fixed

The Latest News From Dig!

On time for completion and over half way done!

http://www.diglososos.com/2013/10/18/construction-update-more-than-half-way-done-on-track-for-completion/

Government Shutdown Impacts the LOWWP

The New Times' latest issue which came out today has a story on the impacts of the government shutdown to our county. Our sewer project funding took a hit, which hopefully, since the shutdown is over, will go back to normal money-wise. Sad, sad, sad that this happened, not simply for our project as the broader picture is far worse.

Read the New Times story here and look for the heading, Effects on local government:

http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/10142/fed-up-octobers-partial-federal-government-shutdown-is-just-the-latest-manifestation-of-the-cyclical-crises-plaguing-slo-county-and-the-nation/

Sewer Related, That's For Sure

Today the CSD put out a press release with the FINAL results of the bankruptcy caused so many years ago by stopping the last sewer project. I'll put a copy up here in case you would like to read what it says.

Sad, sad, sad, so much wasted time, money and water (as we could not conserve nearly so much water without a sewer project to fund it.) Oh well.

Regional Board's Response to LOCSD Letter

I heard about this letter Wednesday and here it is—the response from the Regional Board to the LOCSD's letter on de-watering. Looks like they are fine with what the contractors are doing and if they are not concerned, so neither should we be. To the hair-on-fire commenters on other online places, the fire is officially out.