A Letter from Lloyd Carter to his visitors:
By Boutris Wittfogel
Representative Jim Costa, the Fresno City Council, and the Westlands Water District-backed Coalition for a Sustainable Delta are correct in the general assertion that wastewater "dumped" into the Delta and its tributaries is harmful to the environment. Federal and state law allows cities, such as Sacramento, to put some wastewater into the rivers. The amount of wastewater, and what is in it, is supposed to be strictly controlled by a regulatory agency. In this case, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (the Regional Board).
As California has some of the toughest wastewater laws in the nation, how can it be that wastewater is allowed to be dumped into the Delta? It's simple. Capture control of the regulatory agency by installing people with ideology or self-interest contrary to the agency's mission and sympathetic to the interest of polluters, be they cities or private industries.
Control the agency's key decision makers and failure of the agency to protect water supplies becomes inevitable. Consider Regional Board chairwoman, Katherine Hart, currently under investigation for conflict of interest issues associated with her marriage to Craig Johns. It turns out Mr. Johns is the owner of lobbying firm California Resource Strategies, whose clients include wastewater agencies, including the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District. This arrangement doesn't pass anyone's ethics test; yet the Regional Board elected Ms. Hart to the Chair position after the conflict of interest allegations came to light.
You can also capture a regulatory agency by stuffing the ranks with people who are not prepared to implement the agency's mission. Since 2006, the Regional Board has seen an unprecedented "brain drain" of its professionals. Dozens of Regional Board personnel, including attorneys, engineers, scientists, and clerical people have fled, or in some cases, been driven from their jobs. Promotion of, and reward for, unprepared personnel tends to result in situations harmful to the environment, economy, and people of California (e.g., appointment of the conflict-ridden Ms. Hart to the Regional Board chair). "Brain Drain" successors are often unprepared to address the intricacies and nuance of the world of water. The consequence is wastewater permits that (1) put people at severe risk of directly consuming, or recreating in, fouled water, (2) fish not afforded "safe passage" through wastewater mixing zones, and (3) the general degradation of our water supplies, including the Delta.
When we drive across bridges or fly in planes, we tend to assume the person responsible for making sure the bridge and plane rivets are safe is competent and has our best interests in mind. These people are faceless; their years of training and education, unimportant; and technical demands of their jobs, unknown to us. We just expect and assume the bridge is safe and the plane is airworthy. Our expectations for the protection of our water supply should be no different.
I applaud Congressman Costa, the Fresno City Council and the grower-funded Coalition For a Sustainable Delta for calling attention to harmful wastewater dumping practices in the Central Valley. I hope their message is more than empty rhetoric. (Sorry, my applause on this point still doesn't let the Delta pumps off the hook for the tremendous damage to the fishery they are causing.) I hope the elected officials and interest groups truly concerned about cleaning up the Delta will focus some attention on the Regional Board culture that has allowed the Delta to be degraded. All the rules in the world won't help the Delta get better unless they are actually enforced by conscientious and law-abiding Regional Board staffers, who do not fear loss of their jobs for doing them.
The Carter radio show
KFCF 88.1 FM airs Lloyd G. Carter's radio show on the second Friday of the month at 3pm. It is really a great show on Water and Environmental issues. Mr. Carter has guests and sometimes takes calls. Very interesting.
Reponse to Bouttris Wittfogel and Lloyd Carter comments
Dear Lloyd,
I noted on your website – www.lloydcarter.com - a letter from a Boutris Wittfogel, preceded by some comments of your own. Since you have a robust readership and are well-versed on California and Central Valley water issues, I believe it is important to address that recent post with a brief follow up directly to you. You may choose to publish our rebuttal or not. However, at the least, it is necessary for us to present our view to you.
We all acknowledge that there are many debates and disagreements over this State’s water supply and the health of the Delta. We at Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District endeavor to keep up with and join the conversation when the opportunity permits. However, there is a very well-organized campaign – in part lead by the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta - based largely on misinformation, which has taken hold in many venues, locales, and with specific media outlets. Seeing this misinformation highlighted on your website is disappointing, yet offers us a chance to set the record straight and potentially reach many of your readers.
Please see our recent Fact Sheet entitled: Response to Coalition for a Sustainable Delta’s “Great Toilet Bowl” Misinformation Campaign. I encourage you to read it, and perhaps give our response equal time on your web site. I believe you’ll find the “What They Say” vs. “The Facts” very helpful. It is posted here: http://www.srcsd.com/dd-whatsnew.php.
On a related note (also alluded to in Mr. Wittfogel’s letter), we take issue the recent rash of cities approving resolutions related to our discharge permit. We believe, again, that their decision making a based on misinformation and the actions they are taking may ultimately negatively affect the entire state. All of us with responsibilities over public utilities have great regard for human health and our ecosystem, and we strive to provide high quality and cost-effective services to our taxpayers and ratepayers. The resolutions make claims about the alleged impacts of ammonium in Sacramento’s wastewater on the fish in the Delta and the ecosystem in general. We believe these claims are derived from the deliberate attempt to perpetuate misinformation about SRCSD’s wastewater treatment plant. When misinformation like this becomes part of the public discussion, it ultimately harms all public facilities that are responsible for managing wastewater and everyone who pays a bill for wastewater service. The actions taken by these councils or boards have the potential to damage everyone in California in the long run because it encourages us to spend public money – in the millions and billions of dollars – to “correct” perceived problems that don’t really exist.
SRCSD is actively engaged in a variety of scientific activities aimed at getting a better understanding of the cause of the changes in the Delta ecosystem, and we too want this problem to be solved. However, the preponderance of evidence indicates that ammonia is not a factor in the decline of the Delta ecosystem.
SRCSD’s wastewater treatment plant is highly regulated and has a very strong record of compliance under the Federal Clean Water Act and the State Porter-Cologne Act. These laws require that our discharge have no impact to beneficial uses, which include the environment and downstream water supply.
I hope you find this information helpful in the ongoing dialogue about these issues, a dialog in which you are actively involved.
Claudia Goss
Communications Director
Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District
10060 Goethe Road
Sacramento, CA 95827
(916) 876-6058
gossc@sacsewer.com
www.srcsd.com
$$ talks & 'Nature' take's a "Hike"...
"I applaud Congressman Costa, the Fresno City Council and the grower-funded Coalition For a Sustainable Delta for calling attention to harmful wastewater dumping practices in the Central Valley. I hope their message is more than empty rhetoric. (Sorry, my applause on this point still doesn't let the Delta pumps off the hook for the tremendous damage to the fishery they are causing.)"
Sir,
Politics are 'politics' (-"Politics: the 2nd oldest profession, and the second LAST 'refuge' of the SCOUNDREL)...---S. Clemmens
This is a very 'old story', WHY do we have to keep repeating it?? (I DO know why, but it is getting very 'tedious') It could be time to 'spite them'...I am NOT 'inferring' that it is...but it is NOT that 'difficult'!
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