THE ROADRUNNER
This particular issue has been around so long that I’ve always thought “lososossewer” was one word -- meaning rancor, rage, and retaliation.
But if one looks closely, it’s not too hard to understand exactly what the real, underlying problem is -- a lot of SLO County people are getting royally screwed.
Many of these Los Osos residents have taken the time over a 30-year period to express their feelings about losing their homes to a mind-bogglingly expensive public works project. And in so doing they have been hooted down and ridiculed by their own elected officials, a gang of overpaid bureaucrats, and the local daily “newspaper,” The Tribune.
When KCCN.tv decided to do a video report on the Los Osos sewer situation, I demurred. Boring, I said. But, gee. How can the wholesale reaming of an entire community be viewed as boring?
For the uninitiated, or those who have simply stopped paying any attention to the little South County community’s plight, here’s a brief summary: A state agency decided that some septic tanks were leaking into the nearby estuary and into the underground aquifer. That’s never been definitively proven, but the assertion was enough to prompt the state agency to begin levying huge “fines” against the “offending” homeowners and demanding a fix.
The sewer talk started. Folks in Los Osos were united in favor of an environmentally sensitive system, but others in positions of power saw little for themselves in such a plan. Inexorably, the winds shifted toward the present plan, a large, expensive ($225 million or more) gravity sewer with big underground concrete pipes -- a system particularly susceptible to earthquakes.
When county officials concocted a plan to exempt vacant-land owners from capital sewer costs, the community was effectively split down the middle -- residents whose pockets were getting plucked, and those who were set to profit immensely.
Supervisor Bruce Gibson had this big-sewer plan in mind when he was elected to his current job, and he’s given only lip service to advocates of a green system.
In KCCN.tv’s 15-minute report, “THE $CENT OF MONEY,” Los Osos residents Linde Owen, Al Barrow, and Piper Rielly suggest there is more to the sewer story than meets the eye -- money. And journalist Ed Ochs reports that he and his family have been receiving death threats for his continuing coverage of the issue.
The contractor selected by the county to do much of the work on the gravity sewer is Montgomery Watson Harza, a giant building conglomerate with obvious ties to county officials.
And supervisors last week voted to stick county taxpayers if state and federal loans don't come through.
Maybe that will spread a little interest to those now safely insulated from the rage in Los Osos.
Death threats, conflicts, dissension... a divisive, 30-year dispute over a sewer for a small California coastal community may be coming to a head, but a loaded selection process for the concept may financially crush many of Los Osos' current inhabitants. If you think this is an old story, then you don't know the whole story.
A new report by KCCN.tv, "THE $CENT OF MONEY," examines myriad financial and emotional challenges facing Los Osos residents as a result of this pricey public works plan, and sheds light on the unquestionably dubious path taken by county officials in their favorite-son selection of a sprawling international developer. On March 14, San Luis Obispo County supervisors voted unanimously to build a gravity-flow in Los Osos and to place the burden of the proposal's $200-million-plus cost on the backs of county taxpayers if anticipated state and federal grants and loans fail to materialize.
Is the county's choice of sewer design the best, the cheapest, the most environmentally-sound? The area's supervisor, Bruce Gibson (2nd District), thinks so. The former planning commissioner is an unabashed advocate of the concrete pipe gravity sewer. But for decades, a band of determined Los Osos residents has dogged the issue -- and now Gibson -- hoping their vision of a green sewer plan for the delicate seaside environ would eventually prevail, and that the project's cost would not become prohibitive. Their efforts have been spurned, even openly criticized, by supervisors who turn a blind eye to more-than-apparent conflicts of interest among county employees and private developers and their consultants.
As some sort of conclusion to the convoluted conflict draws near, Los Osos passions are running high. Ed Ochs, editor of a news Web site called "The Rock," has penned numerous articles critical of the county's plans. He said recently he and members of his family have received death threats because of their outspoken position on the issue. Ochs' law-student son, Aaron, also writes pointed local commentary on his blog, "The Razor."
And in the wake of the Japanese calamity, some Los Osos residents now are questioning a gravity-flow sewer's chances of surviving even a small coastal earthquake.