Chloride: the other nasty powder plaguing our valley
Last night’s City Council meeting focused on the proposed sanitation rate hike that will be used to offset the cost of further reducing the chloride in our waste.
High points:
- After years of debate, in 2008, SCV residents passed Measure S, banning chlorde-based softeners on the belief that it would reduce the chloride in the Santa Clara river
- Residents pulled out expensive water softener systems, replacing them with a monthly exchange tank (which transfers the chloride issue to a servicer) or simply dealing with SCV’s notorious hard water
- Steve Maguin, General Manager and Chief Engineer, Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District, shared last night that while softener removal has helped, it isn’t enough, and the State Water Resources Control Board can slap us with a big fine. It’s so big, he can’t even say how big it is in public else we risk our chances of challenging the whole damn thing.
- Now residents stand to risk a $100 per year rate hike to invest in a waste treatment project that would fix this mess.
- Maguin insists the project would otherwise cost more if we hadn’t pulled our softeners
What a pickle.
Maguin was articulate in laying out the issues and blunted much of the expected public outcry last night, completely flabergasting the first speaker, Al Porcellino, who ended up walking from the podium after muttering complaints about pulling his $6k water softener. Mr. Maguin shared his experience in a former role with Antelope Valley, who encountered a similar scuffle with their SWRCB and after much ado, ended up swallowing the pill and conforming with the Water Board’s requirements.
So – do we challenge the Water Board or comply with their mandated chloride level?
Our City Councilmembers asked Mr. Maguin some pointed questions, clearly reflecting the anger shared by SCV residents that our efforts thus far have not been enough to fully comply. In attempting to distill the appropriate direction of the rage, Laurie Ender asked Maguin who is to blame for the possible imposition of a fine.
He quickly responded “the US Congress and the California State Legislature.”
Kellar offered his analysis, saying “no wonder people are leaving this state,” adding his signature summation “Sweet Lord.”
Who is to blame?
Depends on who you ask.
- The Ventura County farmers, who voice their chloride-induced rage to the State Water Board despite bumper crops and inaction on banning softeners in Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru.
- The State Water Board, which set chloride levels at a level influenced by the dastardly VeCo farmers; some say that level is artificially low, notably Kevin Korenthal, who is running for a seat on the CLWA Board.
- The Governor, who appoints the members of the State Water Board that set the levels.
- The California Legislature, which confirms the Governor’s appointees
- The US Congress, which passed the Clean Water Act in 1972 and has since ammended it to authorize states to levy fines for non-compliance.
- Someone else – upstream on the San Joaquin River Delta, which is the alleged source of the chloride.
- The City Council, since Weste and McLean sit on the Sanitation Board, which missed the boat in estimating the impact of the changes made thus far in reducing our chloride.
How steep of a hill is this to climb? That’s unclear. Our Sanitation Board meets Thursday May 27th to discuss the details in a closed door session, but there is a public comment session that will commence at 6:30pm. One thing is for sure: this town isn’t going to take this fight lying down.
* UPDATE: The Sanitation District meeting has been rescheduled for June 2 at 6:30pm. Supe Antonovich will be there.
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Pingback: SCVTalk.com » Blog Archive » May 26, 2010 – Daily Brief
The approximate $100 yearly increase is about 50% for increased costs of regular operations (even though core inflation has only been 1% over the last year AND they have had increases of 55% over the last five years where the inflation rate was only 13%)
The other 50% is to pay for only the design costs of the de-salinization plant. The actual plant and the other measures to be taken will then add anywhere from $600 to $1,000 per year to our tax bills. The Sanitation District has been all over the map on the actual estimated costs. At this time they are saying $210 million dollars, but they are also saying that the real costs will not be known until a few years down the road after the design is complete.
The Regional Water Board (appointed by the Governor) is responsible for setting the chloride level, and the agricultural interests in Ventura convinced them that the 100 mg/l was needed to protect the crops. The level is not supported by any scientific study. The downstream users want us to buy and deliver a bunch of water for them. Can you say “Chinatown”? (the movie)
RWQCB board is incompetent and biased. I would like to see our city challenge this. It is also hurting our ability to recycle water. The Sanitation District is already in PR mode telling us what a great deal this is. It’s a government boondoggle that presents us with a choice: pay for something not needed or fight with lawsuits. San Districts want to just cave and avoid the lawsuit that seems totally justified. You can’t just pick regulatory limits out of thin air (well one book report!) and make a $250 million project, with $5 million plus in annual costs for eternity. San Districts told us that 75% of the ratepayer’scost in future years is for operation of this boondoggle, so it is not chump change. Also, the power needs for the treatment are huge…so much for going green.
The Sanitation meeting is Thursday May 27th at 6:30 and it is a public meeting with public comment at City Hall. (there is also a closed section of the meeting at a different time) Come tell your elected officials to fight this.
The meeting has been rescheduled for June 2nd. Please be there.
Maria and TimBen, read my comments below. You and the rest of the public do not have to attack this new charge purely on a scientific level. There is a straight-up Constitutional challenge against the two County Water Districts.
I would much rather see us develop a toilet to tap program or better yet, build a recycled water plant and convert 100% of our “discharge” to local irrigation supplies.
Take THAT Ventura County!
PS it is the state legislature that must approve the RWQCB people, but they have to come from our watershed so they are in a way local. Governor picks who will likely pass. They only set limits for our area, and other RWQCBs are far more common sense than ours. Get this – there are income restrictions so no one of them can work for any dischargers so…no environmental engineers, no water district people, no sanitation people,not even any military retirees since military has water discharge permits. There is one category that does not have this restriction – put in place to allegedly prevent bias. What category is that? You guessed it – the Ag guys! So you get a bunch of people who know nothing about water or business or application of environmental laws – except for Ag guys who get to perpetuate their own exemptions. This is what happens when obscure regulations get passed without public input because they “sound good” in sound bites.
The gorilla dust really started flying last night and it ignited and excited a lot of people to fight this thing. Me being one of them. This is environmental law run a muck. Not to mention the lobby organizations out there for manufactures of these multi million dollar desalinization plant equipment who need a market. how perfect is it to use the system to game the tax payer to support their existence. I’m not taking this laying down, no way.
We are being prayed upon by environmental attorneys with junk or non existent science, and arbitrarily manipulated environmentalist laws. No way should our city or any citizen take this special interest corruption. NO WAY AT ALL!!
I didn’t know Marsha McLean was in that Twisted Sister video.
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I can tell you, as the director of a construction trade association that represents contractors that build just the types of facilities proposed here, none of my members want to see or be part of the building of a project that is mandated based upon poor environmental regulations and junk science. Instead, we would like to be part of a much broader solution. The solution I propose is to build the water conveyance, storage and reprocessing infrastructure that Californians deserve and are increasingly demanding.
In an analysis posted on SCVTALK on 5/27 NickelDime has figured out the long term cost of this chloride removal.
About 8 years ago, I started criticizing the County Sanitation Districts for Santa Clarita jamming these new sewer fees and charges down Santa Clarita taxpayers’ throats. I said they violated Propositions 13 and 218.
While you might consider me an environmentalist, I am first and foremost a believer in the principle that city, county and special agency governments must follow California law, and that on a moral and ethical basis, they should do it without having to being sued to make them comply with the law. Moreover, I have always felt that city attorneys and county counsel secretly advising city councils and special districts to violate the law, and wait for the taxpaper to sue, is reprehensible. That, unfortunately is what goes on all the time in Southern California.
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (hjta.com) has a wonderful website guiding the taxpaper as to ballot propositions and recent court decisions reigning in the power of local governments to tax, assess, fee and levy utility charges to raise money in violation of the basic principles of Proposition 13. There have now been 6 statewide ballot measures enhancing Proposition 13, in order to plug loopholes which local governments tried to create to allow them raise taxes, assessments, fees and utility charges without 2/3rs approval of the voters, which is what Proposition 13 requires. In addition there have been close to 100 Supreme Court and Court of Appeal cases slapping down local government agencies for violating Proposition 13 and the other subsequent ballot measures.
When I began to criticize the proposed new charges to take the chlorides out of the sewer effluent, I did so because the “charges” to build the facilities and install the equipment to remove the chlorides would be new taxes or charges as defined in Propositions 13 and 218, and other related ballot propositions. Essentially, under the Proposition 13 genre of ballot measures and cases, a local agency cannot impose a tax to pay for “new structures and equipment” without an approval of 2/3rds of the voters.
When I made that comment in public, my “good friend” Frank Ferry verbally flipped out, and yelled at me at a City Council meeting, because he was one of Santa Clarita’s officials on the “board of directors” of the two County sanitation districts.
Within a week or so thereafter, there magically appeared at my family’s house an unsolicited letter from the County Counsel staff lawyer representing the Sanitation Districts essentially telling me to shut up; that the Regional Water Quality Control Board was forcing the Sanitation Districts to add the equipment and the structure to house it; and that there was no other way to fund the equipment so I should back off from raising the Proposition 13 and 218 issues.
All of this, of course, was all before the chloride removing equipment fees, charges, and assessments had actually been levied by the County Sanitation Districts.
The attorneys at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association are inundated with requests to litigate against illegal taxes, assessments, fees and utility charges, but as a result of that letter I had a good, technical talk with their leader and he, too, thought that it didn’t matter what the Regional Water Quality Control Board wanted, that the new charges “for removal of chlorides” violated Propositions 13, 218 and related case law. He apologized and said they were so over-burdened with litigation against public agencies acting illegally and their lawyers (including Burke Williams & Sorensen) that they could not take Santa Claritan’s case. He gave me a very short list of lawyers who litigate Proposition 13 cases on a contingency fee basis, and suggested I phone them. I did, but ultimately decided I would litigate the case myself, once the new fees and charges were levied, simply because I am a perfectionist who believes that if you want something done right, you do it yourself.
Then, a funny thing happened on my way to work one day. A truck driver for a movie studio negligently tried to kill a bunch of people, including me. While the brain still works fine, the body isn’t litigating any more.
In the days since that presumptuous letter I received from the County Counsel’s office, it has appeared to me that on behalf of the two Santa Clarita Sanitation Districts the County Counsel’s office lawyers representing the Sanitation Districts have been trying to maneuver around Propositions 13 and 218, to try to find a way to make Santa Claritans pay for the chloride removal equipment and facilities, hoping that their “structuring” and raising money in small increments will go unchallenged. NickelDime’s essay on SCVTALK on 5/27 shows that this sneaky incrementalism produces a really enormous pot of money to add the equipment and facilities.
I still think that these chloride related fees and charges are illegal under Propositions 13, 218 and related cases and ballot measures, and that the Sanitation Districts could have resisted by putting the charges on the ballot, and seeing if 2/3rs of the voters would have “said yes”. If the voters had said “no” the Sanitation Districts could have told Regional Water Quality Control Board to “shove it” and dared them to sue. That would have been a far more principled stance than the Sanitation District’s boards of directors, at all times made up of 2 Santa Clarita City Councilmembers plus Mike Antonivitch, simply brainlessly doing what they were told by County Counsel’s low level lawyers. Those low level lawyers simply want to follow the path of least resistance and take huge amounts of money out of the taxpayers pockets, rather than fight RWQCb. A pox on the cowards.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpapers Association’s website reminds all of us who oppose the arrogant boot heel of county bureaucrats that there is also a way for local taxpayers to put an initiative on their ballot (in this case a ballot for the territory of the two Sanitation Districts) to repeal “utility taxes”.
So my friends, the ball is in your court. While various City Council members have comprised 2/3rds of the board of directors of the 2 county sanitation districts for the last 8 years, it’s obvious to me that they have dropped their well publicized opposition to these new fees and taxes and simply rolled over and let the County Counsel try to “structure” fees, assessments and charges which try to look like they don’t violate Propositions 13 and 218.
The practical question is whether there is a competent litigator living in Santa Clarita who wants to go to bat against the County Counsel and challenge these chloride removal facilities charges? It would have to be done on a “contingency fees basis”, but an ultimate win would award the litigator attorneys fees at 150% of his/her regular hourly rate, plus court costs.
As encouragement for preservation of the voters’ mandate under Proposition 13, to see how the taxpayers can defeat the bureaucrats, Justice Chin of the California Supreme Court wrote a very stirring, clear call to arms in a case called SILICON VALLEY TAXPAYERS’ ASSOCIATION, INC. v. SANTA CLARA COUNTY OPEN SPACE AUTHORITY (Supreme Court of California 2008) 44 Cal. 4th 431, where “the people” won a decisive victory against an army of “municipal lawyers”. That case is just one of many applicable to these sneaky, incrementalist sewer fees, assessments and taxes to fund facilities to remove chlorides, a maneuver which if done straightforwardly would violate Propositions 13 and 218 and associated case law.
So, Santa Clarita Bar Association members, are you men or sheep?
As a p.s. somebody should check to see if the County Counsel’s office is the lawyer for both the Sanitation District and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. If they are, they have a conflict of interest under the State Bar Rules to boot.
The reason I think that may be the case is that the Los Angeles County Counsel’s office has a documentable history of acting as lawyers for both county agencies and “regional” agencies like Metrolink.
As a footnote, I spent some time doing internet searches, and it looks to me like all of the lawyers whose names show up are “counsel” to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board are officed in the Sacramento-based headquarters of the State Water Quality Control Board.
So my conclusion is that it is NOT the L.A. County Counsel’s office acting as lawyers for the L.A. Regional Water Quality Control Board.