On Wednesday, Supervisor Rob Brown requested that a discussion on a possible moratorium for Lake County Sanitation District's Southeast Regional Wastewater Collection System be placed on the Board of Supervisors' agenda for next Tuesday, Feb. 9.
The proposal came out of a discussion at this Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, when the board received another update on the taxed system, which recently had numerous spills due to inflow from the storms.
Clearlake City Administrator Dale Neiman suggested to the board that in addition to a $5 million option to upgrade the system that is favored by him, Supervisor Jeff Smith and Special District Administrator Mark Dellinger, the board had other options for addressing the system.
Those included, according to Neiman, allowing sewage to continue to spill into the streets and the lake, or the impose a moratorium on new development, which he said would damage the value of vacant properties in the area.
Brown's memorandum to the board referred to Neiman's suggestion about a moratorium on new connections.
“Now that this has been brought to our attention, we have a duty to impose a moratorium since it is the only action we can take that will have an immediate impact and will demonstrate to the State Regional Board that we are aggressively addressing the problem and keeping it from getting any worse while long term solutions are being pursued,” Brown wrote in his memo.
Brown explained that there appeared to be no quick fixes for the sewer system, and even if the $5 million project takes place, it will take years to complete, and will be subject to an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act.
In order to make it meaningful, Brown is recommending that property owners not be allowed to transfer connections from one parcel to another in the district.
“I realize this is an extreme measure but in light of the information presented to the Board last week I don't believe we have any reasonable alternative,” Brown said in his memo.
At Tuesday's meeting, Dellinger gave the board an update on a “preferred alternative” which the county and the Clearlake Redevelopment Agency are negotiating to implement for the Southeast Regional system.
The $5 million plan – with the costs proposed to be split evenly between the county and the agency – would include a new force main and pump station, which would take major load off the system and free up 3,000 new hookups, Dellinger said.
Dellinger said the plan is the preferred alternative because it offers “the greatest longterm benefit to the entire collection system.” The first draft of the agreement necessary between the city and county was submitted in January, he said, and they're also discussing funding options.
Smith said the system improvements are needed regardless of whether or not the city of Clearlake pursues its plan for a regional shopping center anchored by a Lowe's home improvement center on the site of the city's former airport.
During the storms last month, Dellinger said they hauled 600,000 gallons of sewage out of the system using pumper trucks in order to avoid spills, with 500,000 of that coming from the Southeast Regional system alone.
Had it not been for the trucks hauling away the sewage combined with rainwater, Smith said it would have spilled into area creeks and eventually ended up in Anderson Marsh.
“We're spilling right now without a development there,” Smith said. “It's something we all need to get behind and support to get this done, no matter what.”
He said the upgrades should be Lake County Special District's responsibility, but the city was offering to partner.
Dellinger said new development would pay for about 20 percent of the cost of the overall project, but a rate increase under the auspices of Proposition 218 – which governs how utility rates are set – would be appropriate, as would a system development charge.
Supervisor Jim Comstock asked about the spill events they've had in the past 10 years. Dellinger, who has been with Special Districts for eight years, said he introduced a change of philosophy in order to stop spills and prevent the county from paying high state fines.
“I saw the risk exposure that our district was facing by letting it spill versus paying septic haulers to pump it because I know the people at the regional board have their calculators running and they're totaling the numbers,” he said. “To the extent I can keep those numbers down, I think its better for us. So that's what the philosophy has been since I've been here.”
Having said that, he gave “a wild guess” that in his eight years they have spent as much as $500,000 on septic haulers.
Without the partnership with the city, Board Chair Anthony Farrington said the county would be looking at millions more in costs and would have to try to find it in grants, which right now is a “cumbersome task.”
Dellinger said there were still many details to work out on the plan, but without the city's help he suggested they would have to require a 20-percent rate increase, or about $5 to $6 more a month on every single family home connection equivalent. They also would need to seek a loan from the state revolving loan fund assuming a 3 percent rate.
He said his primary goal is to fix the infrastructure. “I want to work with the city. I want them to be able to have new development come in and be able to connect and me not to lose sleep at night over whether we did the right thing. We help ourselves by partnering with the city of Clearlake because we can implement this faster.”
Whether they partner on the project or not, the county and city still will have to work closely together, as the force main will run through the city, Dellinger said.
Supervisor Denise Rushing asked if there were any lower cost alternatives that didn't consider growth. Dellinger said he focused on this alternative because it offered the best regional solution.
“If I don't look at a longer term regional approach to this, we're going to be chasing our tail forever to try to catch up with this,” he said. “I want to get ahead of it. And this is the way to do it.”
The plan will offer 600 single family connection equivalents in the Highlands Harbor area and another 2,500 single family equivalents that would facilitate infill, which offers the most cost effective infrastructure option, he said.
Neiman told the board that Dellinger was right in his approach to hauling sewage rather than letting it spill, as they become liable if even one gallon spills. He said there have been 38,000 gallons spilled in the Southeast Regional system over the last two years.
He said they could look at the other solutions, including trying to raise rates as much as 140-percent – which he said likely would result in Proposition 218 protests – or they can do piecemeal solutions. But the preferred alternative made the most sense.
That option will allow them to partner to fix the problems and both the agency and county will get their money back, Neiman said.
He said his philosophy has always been to use public improvements to guide development to the best locations possible. “That didn't happen in Clearlake.”
Neiman said he hasn't had a chance to look over the draft agreement the county has submitted, noting he's been buried with the city's redevelopment plan amendment and also has had “a tremendous amount of work” associated with the the Lowe's project.
Lower Lake resident Victoria Brandon, who lives just outside of the sewer district, agreed that the problems need to be fixed. She said there is a hidden cost to the problem – that being degradation to the lake and an impact on water quality, which they saw the affects of in last summer's algae problems.
Community members also urged fixes, including Lucerne resident Andy Peterson who chairs the board of Rural Communities Housing Development Corp., which owns Highlands Village, a 32-unit affordable housing apartment complex for seniors on Old Highway 53.
“They've been adversely affected by the failure of this system,” he said.
Realtor Dave Hughes added that the problems have been around for years, and that Special Districts and the county had a responsibilities to the ratepayers and communities of Clearlake and Lower Lake.
Farrington said the fixes needed to be made and he supported moving forward.
Brown said he thought the discussion about the Lowe's project was relevant to the consideration.
While he agreed that the system needs to be fixed, he said he's not sure that it would be such a priority for the city of Clearlake without the Lowe's project on the table.
Referring to Neiman's suggestion that the main options were a moratorium or a partnership, Brown voiced his concerns with a partnership and, more specifically, Neiman himself.
“We've done that in the past. We've been partners with them. And I think we've been a good partner,” he said. “But I think right now that partnership is challenged and I want to be able to trust my partner and I don't think I'm there with him right now. But I'll go along with getting this situation fixed.”
Rushing agreed with Brown.
“It's unfortunate that we as partners have very little leverage over something that's going to affect us so greatly,” she said, referring to the Lowe's plan.
The Board of Supervisors voted last month to ask that the city do a full environmental impact report on the project. However, the county's leverage on the project is coming about in the need to create sewer capacity, Rushing said.
“It's really unfortunate that we're put in that position,” she said.
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