The SewerWatch CDO Defense: Six Mirrors
Before one of the "Los Osos 45" -- the 45 randomly selected property owners in Los Osos that were issued a Cease and Desist Order by the Regional Water Quality Control Board earlier this year -- says a word in their defense at the April 28 meeting regarding this matter, the Regional Water Quality Control Board needs to answer a question:How is the train wreck in Los Osos not the RWQCB's fault for allowing the initial CSD Board to waste two critical years on a project that the RWQCB knew wasn't going to work?
An analogy:
If Exxon had told the federal government at the time of the Valdez oil spill, that their plan to clean up the oil was to sprinkle fairy dust on it, and the government said, "That ain't gonna cut it," but then just sat back and watched -- for two years -- while Exxon sprinkled fairy dust on the oil, who would be more at fault when the shores of Prince William Sound became a barren wasteland because the fairy dust wasn't cleaning up the oil? At that point -- two years later -- who would be more responsible for the barren wasteland? Exxon, for the initial spill, or the federal government for allowing the spill to fester for two years?
I'm not an attorney, but I'll play one on my blog, I think there's a legal term for that situation... and I believe it has something to do with culpability.
So, who is more culpable for the current situation in Los Osos? The property owners in Los Osos, many of whom weren't even around when Briggs and company at the local Water Quality Board were sitting on the sidelines, watching, as the initial CSD Board sprinkled fairy dust on Los Osos' wastewater problem from January 1999 to late 2000, or the only agency that had the authority to bring the initial CSD Board back to reality and save two precious, critical years, but failed to do so?
I've got to go with the latter on that one.
Which, for me (and you if you chose the latter, too), makes all of this a very interesting situation: The agency that is in large part responsible for the mess in Los Osos, is penalizing the people of Los Osos for that mess. Wow.
If I was defending myself against one of those CDOs, I'd show up at that April 28th meeting with six copies of my open letter to Roger Briggs and six mirrors. Then I'd pass them out to each member of the board, and Briggs, and then I'd say, "I rest my case."
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posted by Ron at
2:39 PM
5 Comments:
Perhaps you forget, Ron, that it is the residents of the LOCSD who have chosen the path of telling the RWQCB first that they will build a plant and then that they want additional continued delay over construction.
Essentially the LOCSD residents have told the RWQCB to "go pound sand."
Had a wiser CSD board been in charge, the CDOs would not have happened. The RWQCB would have seen evidence of progress toward a far-too-long-delayed WWTF.
The CDOs are essentially the RWQCB's 2nd reaction to the LOCSD's choice to stop construction. (The ACL hearing and fines were the first.)
When you add the costs ... $6M in fines, and additional $10k/day in fines ($2M so far) and pumping charges it would seem that the LOCSD and the RWQCB are in a pissing contest where the RWQCB will win because the law is on their side already. Was this smart? Was this wise? Could this have been predicted in advance? No, No and Yes are the answers.
By
Shark Inlet, at 4:08 PM, April 14, 2006
You say "suspend", I say "stop" ... it would seem to be a distinction without a difference at this point in time.
I would ask you where in the SRF Loan contract it gives the LOCSD the right to suspend the work. If the contract does give the CSD the right to suspend it is pretty simple that the board has done nothing wrong in that regard and that the SWRCB has some answering to do for suspending payments (and the LOCSD as well for refusing to pay contractors for work they had already done). On the other hand, if the LOCSD doesn't have the right to suspend the work without prior approval of the SWRCB, essentially the LOCSD's action was to stop construction, however you would want to call it.
As to your contention that the ACL action wasn't a reaction to the action to stop construction ... maybe you should read the ACL hearing transcripts or watch the hearings again. The RWQCB staff and board itself were very clear ... the action was taken because of LOCSD board actions to stop progress on the only solution available to our community at this time.
If you are going to start to assign blame for some things that have caused our bills to go up you might want to start with more reecent events because they have been far more costly. Along those lines, your suggestion that Gordon wants Los Osos to only be for priviledged white people is simply silly when it has been the actions of others that has raised our bills the most.
By
Shark Inlet, at 10:27 PM, April 14, 2006
Dear Inlet, If I'm not mistaken, the contract with all the contractors had in it a 90 day "no harm, no foul" "stand-down" delay in it, i.e. everything could stop for 90 days for no reason at all or for very good reasons without it being considered "stopping work." Those two things -- "delay" and "stopping work" are not interchangeable. What will have to be decided in court is just WHO stopped the second SRF check when the CSD called "stand down."
At the ACL hearing, if I heard right, Darrin Polhemus at the SWB said HE stopped the check. The emails among him, the CSD, the SWB's lawyers etc. will be crucial as to the timing of it all. If, indeed, the second check was stopped while the CSD was in "stand down," then the State will have a lot of "splainin'" to do.
By
Churadogs, at 6:31 AM, April 15, 2006
Ann, I read the contract, unlike the "contract guy" Dan. (Well, he might have read it ... misread it.) The contract specifies that the LOCSD is obliged to follow all SWRCB staff orders and to check first with SWRCB staff for approval of any action other than continued progress on the prior approved plan.
Perhaps I am not a "contract guy" or a lawyer, but to argue that the provision that allows for delay due to archealogical artifacts during grading and digging would allow them to delay the construction by some years and to move the WWTF by miles as absolutely laughable.
When the courts determine the LOCSD was in the wrong in every way will you then admit this board is making unwise decisions?
By
Shark Inlet, at 9:02 AM, April 15, 2006
Ahhhh... letter-to-the-editor campaigns, unattributed claims, and deliberate confusion. Take a deep breath... can you smell it? Yep, no doubt about it... I've been smelling it for ten years now... the unmistakable stench of "behavior based marketing strategies."
Must be campaign season in Los Osos.
I'm not sure I can stomach another round of that "strategy." The quicker the Coastal Commission figures out my tight revocation argument, the better... c'mon, Steve, what are you waiting for?
By
Ron, at 9:46 AM, April 15, 2006
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