Supervisors Certify Occidental Pipeline EIR
By Brenda Adelman
The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, acting as Directors of the Occidental County Sanitation District (OCSD), recently certified a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) for a wastewater pipeline project that would hook up Occidental and Camp Meeker to the Russian River County Sanitation District. This SEIR had recently been declared “inadequate” by the lead agency, Camp Meeker Recreation and Park District.
To justify this decision, overriding the legitimate ruling of the “lead” agency, the County’s Resolution stated, “District staff want to emphasize that the District does not intend to pursue the project identified in the Final SEIR, and recommend certification to stop the District and its ratepayers from receiving additional fines.” ($1000 a day beginning February 1st) The Supervisors’ latest vote is a testament to the County’s failure to resolve West County wastewater issues since 1995, when the Sonoma County Water Agency took over management of County sanitation districts.
Other options were available to deal with the fines, but the County chose the quickest and easiest one to implement, even though by so doing, it facilitated future use of inadequate environmental documents for project implementation down the road. The Supervisor’s certification may be an unprecedented use of the environmental review process and is probably not in keeping with the intent of the law.
To their credit, the Resolution also ordered the development of a new economically viable wastewater system to satisfy the conditions of the Regional Water Board’s timeline orders, which would be the fourth project in ten years intended to address Occidental’s serious pollution problems. (There was one successful project recently implemented to replace about 2/3 of Occidental’s collection system. This solved part of Occidental’s problems; yet new treatment and disposal methods are still needed.)
This latest action was the third certified EIR for a sewer project intended to fix Occidental’s long-standing wastewater pollution problems. The first EIR, released in 1998, contained several land-based alternatives designed to serve Occidental only. That EIR was certified by Directors of the Occidental County Sanitation District (OCSD) in February, 2000.
Subsequently Regional Board staff determined, AFTER the first EIR was certified, that the preferred project could never be permitted (a community leach-field system). It is a puzzle as to why there was never any attempt to tweak the project so as to address the concerns of the Water Board staff. In fact, it never went before the Water Board and was never subjected to a public hearing. Board staff, after claiming that the project could never be approved, covered themselves by saying that the District should have developed the project (at considerable cost) and submitted it for consideration. The Regional Board is not supposed to dictate the type of project, but can only set standards that need to be met by the selected project.
After this first EIR was effectively disqualified, the Camp Meeker Recreation and Park District (CM) agreed to take the lead in developing a joint project with Occidental utilizing and upgrading the Occidental Treatment Plant. In this instance, Sonoma County Water Agency did not play a leading role, although they financed the work. This was a viable but ultimately expensive project ($20 million), and, after certification of the EIR, SCWA never obtained funding for it.
In December, 2006, SCWA approached Camp Meeker Recreation and Park District (CM) with a draft contract to be the lead agency for a supplemental EIR (later termed a Subsequent EIR) that would study a raw sewage pipeline project from Occidental to Russian River County Sanitation District (RRCSD). They offered to pay $165,189 to cover costs for the EIR, cooperate in the defense of any lawsuit connected to the EIR, and confer with the District regarding any issues connected to the EIR that arise. One of the selling points made by SCWA to the District included assurances that the pipeline project would be a much cheaper alternative.
The Engineer’s estimate for this latest project, released in late 2007, determined that the cost would come to about $22 million for both Occidental and Camp Meeker, similar to the cost for the second project. This should have come as no surprise. Ironically, it’s about the same for the Monte Rio project that was recently cancelled. In 2000, Mike Reilly wrote a letter to the Regional Board stating that the pipeline project to Guerneville was not considered (in second EIR) because of its excessive cost.
Reilly’s letter stated, “The County would be understandably reluctant to select the preferred project and embark on the expensive and time consuming process of project design on any project that could not ultimately receive an NPDES permit. On the other hand, the only other project studied and certified is a pipeline to the Russian River Sanitation system which is substantially more costly and which itself has not resolved outstanding deficiencies in resolving problems with adequate discharge and high water event violations.” The County wasted about $200,000 pursuing this latest project proposal.
Regional Board staff now claim they would like a separate local, affordable remedy for Occidental alone that utilizes land-based and possibly alternative systems. We have come full circle and now hope this can get resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. What are the chances? Stay tuned….
Brenda Adelman and Russian River Watershed Protection Committee can be reached at rrwpc-1@comcast.net