Features

When Dr. Wickham spoke for the LOCSD and community at the televised Los Osos Cease and Desist Order hearings on April 28, he gave the Regional Water Board a very important science lesson in how septic tanks work that they either skipped or didn’t expect. Now school’s out for the Water Board to weigh the Blakesee proposal to freeze enforcement, or until they can locate an expert to counter Dr. Wickham’s irrefutable scientific evidence against the board’s actions, which will take a lot longer than it will take to build a sewer in Los Osos. But it wasn’t just what Dr. Wickham said, as profound as it was considering the venue, the moment and what’s at stake, but how he said it—knowledgably, clinically, simply, graciously—yet very firmly. For the beleaguered CDO recipients, his testimony was the first real ray of hope on an otherwise bleak moonscape, elevating Dr. Wickham to a Paul Bunyan with brains—a giant killer—in the battle for truth in Los Osos. The Rock revisits that fateful April day with Dr. Wickham when he stopped “The Show” by blinding them with science, and at the same time we asked him quite a few more questions than the Water Board did about septic solutions for Los Osos, as well as how the county takeover might impact the Los Osos sewer project.

During ex parte comments by commissioners at the June 11 Coastal Commission hearing in Marina del Rey -- which resulted in a Coastal Development Permit unanimously granted to the Los Osos Wastewater Project -- Commissioner Mary Shallenberger disclosed that the day before the hearing she had met with San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Gibson, County Counsels Jensen and McNulty, and County Public Works Director Ogren.

You want specifics, you say? Where and when did the County promise Los Osos anything? Well, here are the facts and nothing but the facts, in their own words.

Los Osos resident and Cal Poly professor Tom Ruehr has for years volunteered his time and expertise to the Los Osos community. When the County assumed control of the Los Osos sewer project on January 1 and sought applicants for its engineering Technical Advisory Committee, Dr. Ruehr again stepped forward to serve. When he heard secondhand that he had been rejected for the TAC, he proceeded to issue his critique of the “Rough Screening Analysis.” In a far-ranging, no-holds-barred interview with The Rock, Dr, Ruehr tackles “the truth about the Los Osos sewer situation,” discusses his role in the Great Debate, his views on a sewer for Los Osos, the County’s 218 vote, RWQCB, and what he believes should be done.

How a Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System for Los Osos offers more for less and solves the water supply problem

A Cal Poly Environmental Engineering student’s unique eye-view of the Great Sewer Debate