CASE Appeal of SLO County Planning Commission Decision
to Approve LOCSD Development Plan

Filed August 12, 2003

Citizens for Affordable and Safe Environment (CASE) appeals the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission decision of July 24, 2003 to approve of the Los Osos Community Services District Development Plan/Coastal Permit #D020283D, which paves the way for the construction and operation of a community wastewater project, including a collection system, treatment facility plant, effluent disposal system and harvest well system.

Grounds for Appeal

Attached as Attachment A and incorporated herein by reference as grounds for this appeal is a copy of a Petition for Writ of Mandate filed in the State of California Superior Court in and for the County of San Luis Obispo by CASE (plaintiff) against the California Coastal Commission (respondent). While the case was dismissed due to a technicality, the allegations made in the petition remain pertinent to the issue at hand and merit serious consideration. CASE submits this petition as Statement of Fact.

In addition, summarized below are adverse environmental and community impacts from the proposed LOCSD Development Plan as well as an overview of the state and federal laws that the plan clearly violates.

Statement of Fact

CASE objects to certification of the Public Facility rezoning and the granting of a permit for the Wastewater Treatment Facility. The construction of such a facility on a known environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) is in blatant violation of the California Coastal Act 30240 that clearly states an ESHA will only be used for an ESHA benefit. It also violates the Endangered Species Act; see attached global positioning of endangered plants located on the ESHA.

By ignoring the intent of these acts and issuing an exemption to allow construction to proceed on the only Baywood fine sand habitat on the planet - which essentially makes this ESHA more endangered than our rainforests - does not serve the public's best interest and is reckless, environmentally irresponsible civic planning.

To allow sludge hauling to unstated locations and to risk sewage spills to the nearby Morro Bay Estuary and Sweet Springs Nature Preserve is against the spirit and intent of the Coastal Act and is a violation of the View shed rules of the aforementioned Coastal Act.

Further, to have NO contingency plan for cleaning and remediating spills that always result from inevitable sewer plant failures is an obfuscation of your duties and responsibilities of the Board, per the Legislature of California and the Coastal Zone Federal Rules; and, consequently may result in additional costly legal battles in both state and federal courts.

CASE urges you to reject the permit for the plant, a plan at 30% design, with no known home for sludge, and no documented 20-year proven water source for the 'build out' of the 1,700 already accessed Dwelling Unit Equivalents that will pay to hook up to the sewer without any drinking water guarantees.

Sewer water subject to only tertiary treatment is not potable drinking water. Most groundwater disposal / recharge projects are preceded by extensive treatment after tertiary sewer treatment; for example, reverse osmosis, UV light, hydrogen peroxide, micro-filtration, ozone or oxidation, and/or more advanced oxidation technology to reduce known pollutants. For more on this subject, I refer you to the attached Cal Cities lawsuit .

The LOCSD's proposed tertiary treatment will not remove pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, pharmaceuticals, EDCs, TOCs, ketones, ethers, oxgenates, phenols, aldehydes, alcohols, acetates, formates, glycols, PAHs, energetics and nitro-organics (from buried munitions), amines, cyanides, nitriles, chlorinated solvents or chlorine byproducts (that are carcinogens like NDMA).

At the very least, the plant should include reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation technology to removed pollutants in our closed groundwater and drinking water supply to ensure limited build up and cause further damage to our Bay and groundwater / drinking water supply. Our quality drinking water aquifer is currently in overdraft by 30 acre feet, per the project's EIR.

If you approve this without a certified source of drinking water, SLO County will also be at risk of damage lawsuits from those property owners in Class Action lawsuit and the existing homeowners for polluting their drinking water supply, a cost that will ultimately be passed on to taxpayers. For your reference, below are salient points from the Project EIR:

P. 19 3.6: Harvest water reintroduced into drinking water system will be treated (blended and or additional denitrification) to satisfy the standards for RWQCB and the California DHS; 3.7 The comment recommends that the Los Osos CSD determine the level of treatment necessary for the recovered water in order to be re-introduced into the drinking water supply. As of this date that has not been addressed how and at what cost and impacts will occur.

P. 20-1 (Melissa Mooney): Surface runoff issue unresolved erosion control for the leech field keeps disruption habitat Exotic species remediation periodically. Much of Coastal scrub will be lost without mitigation (high quality); 4. Liquifaction not addressed; 5. Erosion, silting, water bar left out; 6. Revegetation is left out of Broderson too.

P. 32 (SLO Engineering): 8. Still no drainage off site no 100 year storm capacity: floods, mounded water in site at plant; 9. Assessment District and formation does not cover fronting and adjacent fee holders rights not to have effluent; 15. Industrial Complex is not compatible with existing homed, library, schools, community center, and Church; 16. Collection system needs financial surety for SLO County roads. There is none.

P. 355.1: Biosolids are not of any class as of this writing and there is no plans for 25% water in it and no landfill has a greed to take it on contract; 5.8 Using road right away for leech field disposal of effluent raises legal questions.

P. 161: Middens and archeological was impacted by the laying fiber optics so to will the sewer raises the question that are not clear.

P. 52 (7-12 and 13): Too much habitat in Coastal Scrub will be mitigated with unlike species. Not possible. Should not be allowed.

P. 62 (10-1): No Title 22 Engineering Report that complies with water recycling criteria has been presented as of this date. The 3m 500 feet from water wells is not complied with nor is there an 8.5 year residence time in the groundwater.

P. 100 (17-4): CESA 2081 permit is not obtained and section 7 USFWS or HCP is not completed and SLO County legal counsel has not approved county to join it so permit is premature.

P. 114 (18-13): Biosolids composting will be required, as no landfill permit has been obtained.

Concluding Comments

The Preliminary Design is 30% complete and relies on technologies that have, at best, limited track records. Further, as noted in the EIR, this plan has so many unresolved issues it is not unreasonable to assume unforeseen cost overruns will double project cost. We are coming close to 10 times the state sewer cost average for a town this size, which will economically cleanse more than 30% of our citizens who can not afford the sewer hook up and septic tank decommission fees or the resulting doubling of water rates and six-fold increase in fire assessment rates.

As stated above, by ignoring the intent of California Coastal Commission and Endangered Species Acts and issuing an exemption to allow construction to proceed on the only Baywood fine sand habitat on the planet - which essentially makes this ESHA more endangered than our rainforests - does not serve the public's best interest and is reckless, environmentally irresponsible civic planning.

Coupled with the fact that the proposed 'Tri-W' sewer site is in the heart of downtown Los Osos, adjacent to a Catholic Church, Community Center, Senior Mobile Home Park, and Sweet Springs Nature Preserve, upwind of an elementary school, in a flood zone draining approximately 400 acres upslope of Morro Bay and within 500 feet of an earthquake fault, the Planning Commission's approval of LOCSD's development plan lacks common sense and ignores obvious public safety concerns.

Even though the plan is still in early design stages, lawsuits already abound and foreshadow potential costly lawsuits in the future, particularly if the Treatment Facility spills or if LOCSD is permitted to discharge inadequately treated sewer effluent into upper aquifers. The costs of defending these lawsuits and the environment cost of losing a precious ESHA surely outweighs the costs associated with forcing LOCSD to adopt a common sense alternative that is fiscally responsible and ecologically wise.

CASE has proposed exactly that - a common sense alternative that is both fiscally responsible and ecologically wise, a win-win solution that replaces our failing septic system with an effluent sewer system. Effluent sewers have been successfully utilized in other coastal communities on the West Coast and case studies have documented savings of up to 50% relative to traditional gravity sewers (such as that proposed by LOCSD).

On our public website (www.case-environmental.org) we offer a lay-person's overview of how effluent sewers work, the benefits from such systems, and refer those interested to more technical information and to case studies summarizing successful implementation in other communities.

Thank you for your consideration of this urgent matter.
Al Barrow
Co-Founder, CASE

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