The Rock Interview: Dr. Thomas Ruehr

Q. Can you please provide me with a concise professional bio with your Los Osos history for readers?

A. Thank you for this opportunity to explain the truth about the Los Osos sewer situation from one who has experienced it from the mid-1970s to today.
    
I believe I am uniquely qualified to address these issues. First, I provided expert advice to the County Engineering Analytical Laboratory when they had analytical problems in testing nitrate in Los Osos. My research specialization focuses upon all biochemical and microbial transformations of nitrogen compounds in the environment.
    
I served as a member of the Nitrate Study of Los Osos Technical Advisory Committee. I served as a member of the Los Osos Wastewater Alternatives Technical Advisory Committee. I have served on the County Health Department’s Technical Advisory Committee on Biosolids.
    
I served as a chair of the Los Osos Blue Ribbon Committee on Water. I served on the Solutions Group seeking an effective wastewater treatment process for Los Osos. I served as a member of the Ripley Pacific Engineering team when they provided the recent report on alternative water treatment for Los Osos.
    
I am a Professor in the Earth and Soil Science Department at Cal Poly State University. I have expertise as a soil microbiologist and biochemist. I am a co-author of a book on fertigation and understand the interactions of water and nutrients. This expertise is critical to understanding the problems commonly ignored regarding the recharge of the wastewater on the sand dunes of Los Osos. Engineers have ignored several major soil problems that plague the wastewater piping and collection process and the wastewater recharge.
    
In addition, my understanding of microbiology provides me with a greater insight into the best way to biodegrade the sewage in the treatment plant and the subsequent decomposition of the resulting biosolids. The processing of the biosolids has been ignored by the proposed sewage treatment projects (prior to the Ripley Pacific report).

Q. What prompted you to write your “TAC Comments”? What made you feel you had to respond?

A. I firmly believe most citizens of Los Osos are being brainwashed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) staff and by County Engineering. Only part of the information is presented. I believe this has been very unethical on the part of the board staff. Their recent letter of mandate to all citizens simply affirms this belief. All citizens deserve to know the full facts.
    
I was asked by several members of the community and one from the TAC to provide a response. Increasingly, I have felt a great injustice is being forced upon the community. This realization has resulted from my past experience working with this community. Many times I realized the information provided by the RWQCB staff to the board with recommendations was either wrong, over emphasizing minor points, and too often glaringly failing to report contrary information. This can be supported by anyone reviewing the RWQCB reports on Los Osos and comparing what is known by the people in the community. Obviously, it was not an objective scientific process, but instead it was definitely a political process.
    
The RWQCB has continuously changed their criteria. The major past problem has been their absolute stupidity of rejecting all science and technology developed within the past 25 years. They have been excessively wedded only to multinational sewer companies providing sewer systems for cities of 2 million people. These processes are not appropriate for small communities of 20,000 people.

Q. Why did you apply for the TAC? What were your hopes? Expectations? How much faith did you have in “the process” going in ... and now?

A. I believed I was very well qualified to provide scientific and technical information to the community. This has continually been my motivation in working for the best for Los Osos. I realized when the County formed the TAC without having an engineer as the director meant they would revert to a totally political process rather than any real interest in considering the true science and technology.  
    
At the time, I hoped some sense of science and technology would provide new ideas and would help our citizens to realize we are being forced by the RWQCB to accept what they want us to install.
    
I saw an e-mail statement from Roger Briggs (RWQCB staff director) stating effectively Los Osos is not paying nearly enough for this sewer. The RWQCB can demand the community do something, but they are legally prohibited from dictating what must be done. However, because power corrupts, they have gradually assumed more power and are exceeding their legal mandate at many levels on many issues. The California Attorney General should investigate their actions, but with the current administration, this is unlikely to happen.

Q. How were you notified you were not selected? Do you sense bias? For/against what? Do you have “history” with the County? Can you suggest any reason they would have no use for your expertise, or the expertise of Dr. John Alexander and other professionals?

A. A person who knew me called to tell me I was not selected. When I learned who had been chosen to serve on the TAC, it was obvious to me the chosen people were only people known or thought potentially to be non-critical and willing to rubber stamp what the new TAC wanted to force onto Los Osos.
    
After reading the recent report to the TAC, I am firmly convinced the intent is to force the Tri-W site with the deeply buried large-diameter sewer pipes working as a gravity collection and using the Broderson recharge site, plus avoiding dealing with the issue of biosolids and ignore including the cost of the homeowner connection from their homes to the system, thereby running up the price on the sewer, especially with add-ons to each home owner. The intent is to use the excuse of federal and state support for the loan as a means to have a vote for a blank check with continually escalating costs.
    
Clearly, the TAC mission and identification of the types of people to select was focusing not on the science and technology and mainly on how to obtain state and federal support for the loan and not related to technical information.
    
My first involvement in the Los Osos issue occurred unintentionally when I was consulted by the County Engineering Analytical Laboratory staff. Percy Garcia shared the County’s collected data with me. In five minutes, I was able to show how dividing the nitrate by the chloride concentration resulted in the chloride being a tracer. The numerical value decreased with depth.  From a chemical point of view, this ratio should remain constant.  From a microbiological view, if denitrification (loss of nitrate as nitrogen gas into the air) occurs, then the ratio would decrease as the nitrate disappears. This confirmed in my mind the obvious result of the County’s data and clearly indicated the septic tanks were functioning properly in Los Osos..
    
Subsequently, while serving on the first Nitrate Study of Los Osos Technical Advisory Committee, I was told by Percy Garcia someone higher up in County Engineering had given him a gag order preventing him from sharing any facts with me. Consequently, this was my first experience of scientists and engineers suppressing the truth to promote a pre-conceived political process regarding the Los Osos sewer.
    
Why have technical expertise on the committee? When the County Engineering has made up its mind about the sewer and what it should be, why be confused with the facts?  Again, this is a way of rejecting truth and affirming only the political process. This is why myself and John Alexander were rejected, and affirms why many of the other qualified individuals were not selected.

Q. Detractors try to dismiss your comments by labeling you a “no-sewer advocate” partly responsible for Los Osos not having a reasonable-cost sewer earlier—even though you conclude here: “I recognize a sewer is needed.” How have detractors distorted your position and how have your views changed over the past 10-15 years, if they have, regarding the need for a sewer?

A. Some people believe I have been against a sewer. I recognize a sewer is needed. I only ask for a true, open and honest assessment of every single facet of the myriad of problems related to this sewer. We owe the citizens of Los Osos the full truth—to know all of the facts and the full costs before we approve of any legislation to contract bonds for the construction of a sewer in Los Osos.
    
We must have some guarantee the various fatal flaws will not occur. Sufficient small businesses are in the sewer game, they probably will be willing to step forward to provide these guarantees and provide loan funds. They will do this for much less cost, with less adverse environmental impact and with much less social disruption for this community than will occur by approving the Tri-W site with the Broderson recharge and the failure to treat the biosolids problem or the initial hookups from each home to the sewer pipes.
    
I have always indicated some locations require a wastewater treatment process. Initially, I believed this could be achieved with local clusters of treatment processes throughout Los Osos.  As I gained information about the groundwater hydrology, it became apparent a larger treatment area would be required.
    
I became firmly convinced of the political process when the gerrymandered prohibition zone was defined. No rational scientific basis exists for this zone. All people in the community share the ground water, therefore all should be responsible for protecting it. This situation is a local example of the “Tragedy of the Commons,” where the commons is the ground water and all are free to use it and to abuse it.
    
Any solution must include all homes in the Los Osos basin as part of the sewer, not simply the poor people within the prohibition zone. Interestingly, the wealthy people of Los Osos are primarily outside of the prohibition zone. If the sewer is paid for by the prohibition zone people, then these wealthy people can link up later without having to pay the major cost of the sewer. This is one reason I believe any vote taken based upon the prohibition zone is unethical.
    
I served on the Los Osos Wastewater Alternatives Technical Advisory Committee. This committee of 12 dedicated Los Osos citizens reached a consensus for a sewer based mainly on some of the basic ideas promoted by the recent Ripley Pacific Engineering report. This was presented to the County Board of Supervisors before the turn of the millennium. If the County had listened to us, we would now have a sewer installed and operating in Los Osos today.
    
Instead, the RWQCB persuaded the Engineering consultant to counter any ideas from the alternatives TAC. The Engineer used “voodoo” economics to charge the cost of the full sewer against each of the other recommended sewer processes identified by the community TAC. This made it appear all alternatives would be much more expensive, whereas they would actually be less than half the cost of what the Engineer had recommended. This “voodoo” economics was accepted by the County Board of Supervisors and served to prolong the sewer to this current date. The Solutions Group was formed and I participated with the hope of developing another alternative solution.
    
My involvement has often been badly misconstrued. We need a sewer. However, we do not need an excessively expensive sewer when economical alternatives are known to work effectively. I have tried to provide my insight into what scientific facts and engineering principles can be applied to the sewer design and the various components required to ensure the installed sewer would work effectively.
    
I was against the Tri-W site because I knew it contained many fatal flaws. I have always supported the installation of a sewer, but I am very much against the community being forced to install a sewer which will NOT solve the problems of the community. I will continue to oppose any sewer proposal where engineers fail to explain clearly to the community how every component functions effectively and how its cost has been minimized (not necessarily the cheapest) to ensure a properly operating sewer system will work.
    
I am very opposed to the approval of any sewer having hidden creeping costs as currently exist for the Tri-W site with the conventional sewer. As has been common recently, more and more public works are being approved with only half of the facts and the design being only partially developed. This results in constantly escalating costs to cover “unforeseen” consequences, which were actually built into the system intentionally.
    
This is a way to ensure future jobs for engineers to continue to correct the problems they created when they tried to correct the first fix with the engineering solution requiring another fix to fix the last fix which did not work. When does this mentality stop? Why should we as citizens allow them to screw us economically with this mentality?
    
I affirm my stand for common sense and for an affordable and effective wastewater treatment process for Los Osos citizens. When we are presented with one, I will campaign strongly for its passage. Until the proper sewer design is presented with a reasonable cost, I will continue to oppose the stupidity promoted over the last more than 20 years.

Q. Why should we worry about mercury from Lake Nacimiento if it’s below detectable levels?

A. The community leaders (from the very first time the issue of the sewer was raised in public discussions) realized in the late 1970s the issue was not about a sewer. They knew the head of County Engineering had been brought to San Luis Obispo to force all communities to use state water or water from Lake Nacimiento.
    
Nacimiento water has the fatal flaw of containing mercury. Mercury is an accumulative poison. The more water you drink, the more the mercury poison builds up inside your body. Thus, any mercury is too much mercury to allow its use by Los Osos. If we import water from Lake Nacimiento, the people in our community will slowly be poisoned by mercury in the water accumulating in our bodies. In “Alice in Wonderland,” the Mad Hatter was suffering from craziness brought on by working with mercury salts to coat beaver pelts (keeping insects and microbes from eating the pelt). These beaver pelts were used to make top hats in England.
    
Water from Morro Bay and Cayucos is state water. This appears to be an effort to force state water upon the citizens of Los Osos. This was the original intent of bringing the old County engineer to San Luis Obispo, to force Los Osos to have to buy into state water. Now it rears its ugly head again, this time in disguise. Cayucos and Morro Bay are underlain by serpentine rock and soils. Any water from Morro Bay and Cayucos aquifer when mixed with the state water develops a disproportionately higher level of magnesium. This high magnesium creates a variety of problems including reducing the rate of water infiltration into the soil. High magnesium in water makes people more “regular” than they may care to become.
    
State water is dangerous and potentially fatally flawed. The state water brought into the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles is loaded with natural organic compounds obtained when the water flows through the San Joaquin Delta Histosols (organic muck and peat soils). These natural organic compounds react with the chlorine treatment to form a wide variety of organo-chlorine compounds many of which are known or suspected of being cancer-causing agents (carcinogens).
    
Why should we expose the citizens of Los Osos to this problem? The only answer is greed. It makes no difference whether other communities continue to do the wrong thing, it is not appropriate to allow Los Osos to expose our residents intentionally to this very serious potential health threat. State water flows through the San Joaquin Delta and has this problem.
    
These are the major reason we must ensure all aspects of the sewer result in our keeping all of our water locally. We must be able to reduce our water loss to Morro Bay to a minimum of about one inch of water per year. The rest of the water must be effectively reused and must NOT be wasted by allowing it to enter the bay by seepage from surrounding soils from the upper aquifer.

Q. When you say we should avoid State Revolving Funds (SRF) monies to keep costs low, are you focusing only on the theoretical possibility and ignoring the likely outcome?

A. I am deeply troubled by the assumption only SRF funds with major government strings will be the only way to go in Los Osos. I firmly believe various firms will be able to provide private lending because they realize the ecologically friendly small and medium size sewer companies are fighting for their existence. If any community can obtain private funding for their sewer process, I can affirm it will certainly be Los Osos. Worldwide attention is focused upon Los Osos in the wastewater industry. These smaller companies understand the problems we face and will be willing to assist us. Most engineers focused upon gigantic sewers do not realize other opportunities do exist for funding.

Q. Why should we look at private funding over SRF monies? Some claim the high interest rates of private funding make this option more expensive in the long run. Is this just bias?

A. I believe we must try as much as possible to prevent any use of the State Revolving Fund monies. I believe we can have access to private funding. It will cost not much more than the state funding.
    
Most importantly, we will be able to ensure we can have a sewer with the least amount of cost overrides if we reject using the SRF. With the SRF and an early 218 vote, we will very likely end up buying a pig in a poke. By this I mean the gigantic multinational sewer installation companies will continually increase the costs. The total cost will be a continuously changing number, mainly because they have ignored the problems encountered with water recharge and biosolids processing.
    
Many problems will develop with the installation and operation of the massively engineered Los Osos sewer. This will result in very expensive cost overrides to fix the last fix that failed to solve the original problem which should have been identified by a properly designed sewer.

Q. What are the dangers of building a sewer and ignoring the problems encountered with water recharge and biosolids processing?

A. The conventional sewer processes this high Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD meaning high organic matter content) sewage so fast it results in a much greater mass of biosolids than will be generated with the STEP system even when the septic tank pumping is added to the total process. In general, the faster sewage is processed at any central processing plant, the more total tons of biosolids that will be produced.
    
It is absolutely critical to establish an on-site treatment process for biosolids treatment. We must have an effective means for aerobic (using air) composting and total biosolids biomass reduction on site. It will be essential to provide some clear process of utilization and beneficial processing of the biosolids. The metals content should be quite low and fortunately additional toxic chemicals are usually quite low in Los Osos.
    
Class A biosolids must be generated. Then these biosolids must be further composted aerobically ideally for over 6 months to a year on site. This might most effectively be achieved by mixing the biosolids with green waste. This will greatly enhance degradation by providing more nutrients, more water holding ability, more aeration and more rapid degradation. The resulting composted material could be used for erosion control and other purposes, including crops harvested with a protective leaf cover (corn, wheat, etc.) but cannot be used for root crop production.
    
Biosolids composting must emphasize vertical processing to enhance aeration and improved microbial degradation rather than the traditional horizontal processing only. Soil inoculation should be considered to ensure these systems work optimally. Inclusion of rice hulls and straw will most likely greatly enhance the rate and quality of composting by promoting water holding and aeration.

Q. Why is the County still looking at Broderson as a recharge site, even as a secondary recharge site? Where is the “fatal flaw” in this? Since County engineering approved the excessive water application rates, how can we trust the County to look after our best interests in other areas requiring objective professional expertise?

A. The allowed loading rates based upon the Tri-W site with the Broderson recharge location is over 1000 times more than can possibly be absorbed in this location. The County seems to have the head-in-the-sand mentality. They believe because the Coastal Commission and the RWQCB approved this site previously, it must be OK to use it. This is probably the greatest fatal flaw in the entire sewer design.
    
I have continually warned (as did Wade Brim before me) the sands in Los Osos will transmit water horizontally faster than they will vertically. This means the sands will not allow for effective water infiltration into these soils and adequate microbial and chemical treatment of the wastewater through the soil pores. The model assumes vertical flow. The County’s own data collected as part of the initial testing of the Broderson site clearly reveals more rapid horizontal rather than vertical movement.
    
They County believes if it drills a core downward, it can overcome many of these clay lamellae. However, what they do not seem to realize is these lamellae occur every inch or two down to the deep clay layer several hundred feet deep. This deep hole would only increase the amount of water flowing horizontally. This will mean more of this water will surface downhill somewhere between the Methodist church and the bay.
    
Probably only later, after the County forces the massive sewer onto the community will they realize the truth of this very restrictive soil property. They must reexamine the engineering, which was a fatal flaw to have approved this high application rate.
    
The failure of the County, the RWQCB and the Coastal Commission to look out for the welfare of the citizens of Los Osos is the very reason I feel compelled to speak out regarding these problems. We cannot trust these people for the facts. They are locked into an octopus process of squeezing Los Osos for all it is worth (both economically and water wise).

Q. Why does the RWQCB insist on “the most expensive sewer possible”?

A. The RWQCB will be making more money in the form of monitoring the Los Osos wastewater situation in the future. The larger the plant, the more money will be coming to the RWQQCB.  Consequently, they have a vested interest in forcing Los Osos to have the most expensive sewer possible. This helps to explain their zeal for approving anything in Los Osos regardless of whether it works or protects the overall water quality. Their eagerness to protect the water “quality” will result in the total loss of all water useful for drinking. Thus, they will eventually work themselves out of a job in Los Osos, but by then the community will be destroyed.

Q. How important is it to establish an on-site treatment process for treating biosolids? What constructive role can on-site play in development of a sewer?

A. In the past few years Kern County has persuaded other counties to reject allowing the importation of any biosolids from Los Angeles to be spread on land in Kern County. Their action has motivated most other counties to write legislation preventing any cross-county transfer of biosolids. Although Santa Barbara County has not yet acted, in all probability it will. The NIMBY approach is very strong and no one wants more biosolids to be applied in their backyard. Thus, we will not be able to dispose of our biosolids. However, the TriW site is predicated upon the availability of trucking our biosolids to the Santa Maria treatment plant.
    
The cost of trucking and especially the cost of dumping our waste in Santa Maria will rise rapidly to several hundred to a thousand dollars a ton. This means we must develop an alternate solution. The only apparent solution is on-site treatment of these biosolids. They must be processed by aerobic decomposition ideally with yard waste, which will accelerate the decomposition process. After appropriate composting on site, the compost might be useful for agriculture.
    
The best place for applying biosolids would be on dry land grazing areas or dryland barley in the northern part of the County. Other uses must be found. We as a society cannot continue to throw away all of our resources. We must realize human waste is a resource that is currently under utilized.
    
Because we must recycle our wastewater, we must also recycle our biosolids. Unfortunately, people believe they can cover their eyes and throw this into a landfill. However, our landfills are rapidly filling, and biosolids contain plant nutrients useful for agriculture. We must adopt a much more progressive and forward thinking process for treating all of our waste products.

Q. If a conventional sewage treatment process does not remove all presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, how safe is it to release these products into treated wastewater? Wouldn’t natural soil filtration provide just as fine a screen for these products?

A. A serious consideration is the presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products. These are not being processed during the conventional sewage treatment process. Swiss researchers first realized this threat about five years ago.
    
Releasing these products in the treated water will have very adverse conditions. For example, birth control medications will pass through the water. If we use this recycled water it will eventually place all residence on birth control when they drink this recycled water. It is not certain whether soil filtration of these products will result in the elimination of these products.  Because the recycled water will become our main water supply we have every obligation to all of our citizens to do the right thing and to prevent contamination and exposure of our citizens to these potential threats to our health.
    
In addition to birth control products, other serious considerations are the possible body elimination of major anti-cancer medications. Fragrances and antibiotics will present major problems. Elevated levels of female hormones in our water may result in the development of full mammary glands in young men. This has been seen with the use of lavender soaps recently.  These are areas with incomplete research at this time.

Q. How seriously should we the people take the dangers of transferring antibiotic-resistant genes to humans through the sewer? How is Tri-W “fatally flawed” from the human health perspective?

A. I am a member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The ASM is very highly concerned about the increasing spread of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment. Sewage treatment plants are one of the worse areas for the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. This occurs for two reasons. First, we eliminate most of the antibiotics we take as urine or feces. Second, the wide variety of microbes in the sewage treatment process encourages the rapid exchange of a host of genes. Some of these genes transferred are antibiotic resistance genes.
    
What is the source of these antibiotic resistance genes? Greed! Inadequate purification of the antibiotic occurs before you receive a shot from the doctor. For a microorganism to produce an antibiotic, the microbe must possess an antibiotic resistance gene allowing it to live and produce the antibiotic (otherwise it would kill itself). The pharmaceutical industry uses only partial purification by separating the microbial cells from the liquid containing the antibiotic. Unfortunately, the antibiotic resistance genes are included with the antibiotic. Thus, when you receive an antibiotic injection, you receive both the antibiotic and the antibiotic resistance gene.
    
If we begin drinking treated wastewater, even after passage through soil, this will probably result in converting the citizens of Los Osos into a huge guinea pig experiment where they will be exposed to the potential transfer of the antibiotic resistance genes being transferred to people. Gene fragments may exist in the water. If this occurs, the health of all individuals in the community will be seriously threatened because physicians will have no alternative during the critical process of administering life-saving medications when the current antibiotics are no longer effective due to the people possessing these antibiotic resistance genes.
    
To make matters worse, when a physician administers an antibiotic from the group of the same antibiotic resistance genes it has two results. First, it kills the disease-causing organisms along with nearly all normal healthy organisms within your body (all those without the antibiotic resistance gene). Second, it gives free reign over your body of all pathogens which have acquired the antibiotic resistance gene. This pathogen will now become life-threatening. Unless the physician can use an antibiotic from another family, you may die.
    
These considerations suggest we must use disinfected tertiary treated wastewater plus a much more intense treatment with Ultra Violet light and possibly hydrogen peroxide or ozone.  Chlorine should be avoided because the addition of chlorine gas results in uncontrolled organic chemical reactions creating organic chlorine compounds that increasingly are seen as suspected cancer-causing agents. Even the presence of organic peroxides are not certain to be really safe.  However, this may be safer than allowing a pathogen to escape through the sewage treatment system. As I have indicated, the organic compounds that escape processing may be a serious threat to our health. The more recycled wastewater we consume, the greater is this threat into the future.

Q. What are the major problems with conventional gravity collection?

A. The major problem is the deep trenching and the installation of long, straight pipes that do not bend to fit the changes in elevation and do not work around corners very well. The deep trenching and large-diameter pipe installation is the most expensive part of the entire sewer.
    
Conventional gravity collection will cause several major problems. First, the large-diameter pipes will leak sewage downward into the soil below each leak. This will result in many uncontrolled leaks. This will provide non-treated nitrate, phosphate, and pathogens to the soil and enhance contamination within the collection zone. This spreads the current problem all over because no septic tank exists under each of these leaks to provide clean up of this leakage spilled into the soil.
    
Second, these large-diameter pipes will leak inward, meaning in zones closest to the sea level, sea water will move into these pipes. Any sea water leakage into these large diameter pipes will have two effects. The sea salts will strongly inhibit the microbial decomposition in the treatment plant. More importantly, these sea salts will prevent this water from being used as a water source for humans. This is absolutely to be prevented under all circumstances. This is a fatal flaw for the currently proposed gravity collection system.
    
Another fatal flow is the major deep-soil disturbance due to installation of the large-diameter pipes. This process will cause deep disturbance at several major locations, going from high on the hillside on the south downward towards the bay to the north.
    
The problem is this disturbance will greatly increase the problems of soil erosion when water concentrates moving down the streets oriented north to south. If any of these streets leaks water, it will result in major out wash of the soil along the route of the sewer lines.
    
In addition, in the event of an earthquake, this will greatly increase the probability of structural damage in homes because the stability of soil can never be returned to the original stability after such a deep soil disturbance. This situation will decrease over time after the sewer is installed, but it will never go away with the number and degree of deep digging actions in this vicinity.
    
Use of the STEP, vacuum and low-pressure collection systems allows much faster response to leakage problems and other difficulties because it has much better monitoring. The greatly improved methods of installing small-diameter pipe with minimal soil disturbance avoid much of the problems identified previously Modern engineering technology allows for directed drilling horizontally below ground, allowing for the installation of small-diameter pipes without this severe deep trenching and soil disturbance.

Q. Does the RWQCB’s approval of the Tri-W site project suggest to you it is more concerned about building the most expensive sewer system than addressing sea water intrusion... energy usage... time and money savings with STEP?

A. Ironically, the RWQCB approved of the Tri-W site gravity collection process because it does not care about the problem of sea water quality deterioration of the collected wastewater. Its excessive zeal is only to ensure the most expensive sewer being installed in Los Osos. So much for the RWQCB’s true concerns over water quality for Los Osos. The RWQCB seems to have blinders on when it comes to seeing the true big picture of concerns facing Los Osos. The RWQCB prefers to see only a few dissidents who are trying to prevent the installation of any sewer.
    
The high BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand due the high organic content of toilet effluent) loading with the conventional sewer collection system means raw black water containing many solids will be collected from each home, ground up and transferred to the proposed gravity collection pipes. An excessive cost for grinding pumps and water flow pumps all using a high rate of electricity is a fatal flaw.
    
When compared to using the septic tank as a distinct part of the total initial biological treatment process, the energy costs decrease dramatically. The BOD with STEP can be reduced nearly three-fold. This means the treatment plant has a much better chance to process the wastewater effectively.
    
A STEP collection system with a lower BOD treatment plant and effective ag water exchange can be installed and working within about 2.5 years, whereas a conventional gravity sewer with the high BOD treatment plant will require about 4 to 5 years to complete. If speed is urgent, then we should consider these trade-offs.

Q.  What is the cost of not having a septic tank compared to the overall costs of the sewer?

A. I realize some people want to keep the government completely out of their lives. However, this is wishful thinking in our complex modern society. Residents will have to tolerate some degree of officials having access to part of your property where the new septic tanks will be installed if we use a collection system similar to the one proposed by the Ripley Pacific Engineering plan.
    
The new plan calls for relocation of most of the existing septic tanks to newly installed septic tanks very near the streets in front of most homes. The current septic tank locations will mostly be abandoned. These new septic tanks would function as a primary treatment in the same way the current septic tanks function. The primary-treated wastewater would be collected by small-diameter pipes with minimal soil disturbance. The wastewater would be monitored continuously once it left your toilet. Monitors would notify the treatment plant officials of any pressure loss, leakage or back up in the system. Responses could be as fast as five minutes and should be no more than a half hour.
    
Concerns exist about sewer officials having access to private property to inspect and pump these new septic tanks. All homeowners need to understand what the trade-off is in costs. The costs for not having a septic tank and not having access to inspect these tanks result in more than double the overall cost of the sewer. Some very wealthy people will not feel this is justified, but most people will realize this is a much better trade-off if the system costs one half as much and it has a much less invasive soil treatment below ground.
    
The community has to accommodate in various ways, and this is one of the realizations for having the new sewer (as proposed by the Ripley Pacific Engineering plan) imposed upon the community. Maybe the cost would have to include buying a region near the street where new septic tanks would be installed. This would allow public control especially if community septic tanks were used instead of individual septic tanks.

Q. If speed of installation is so urgent a factor to the RWQCB and County, and if STEP can be installed faster, why shouldn’t this be more of a consideration?

A. The RWQCB stalled the sewer process proposed by the original first wastewater alternatives TAC. Ironically, they want to say it was the fault of Los Osos for the delay, when in fact the RWQCB rejected a sewer with some of the same components proposed by the Ripley Pacific Engineering plan.
    
It is a fact the STEP or other non-gravitational sewage-water collection system can be installed quickly. This is why this should be considered seriously as an effective solution. The RWQCB and County will have infinite patience of installation for a gigantic sewer for a community of 2 million people. The conventional Tri-W sewer treatment plant would require about 5 to 6 years to become fully operational, whereas the STEP system could be installed in about 2 1/2 years.

Q. With the Tri-W and Broderson sites as prime examples of previously approved systems with now-obvious engineering flaws, would we have encountered millions of dollars of cost increases over time to manage these flaws if the Tri-W project had been built?

A. If the Tri-W site had been developed, we would have seen tremendous costs, which would have required many unanticipated problems. These would include major health problems, earthquake damage, severe soil erosion, major contamination from the leaking large-diameter straight sewer pipes at each slight change in angle of these pipe connections. Each of these would have required millions of dollars more to fix the fix caused by the previous attempted fix. In addition, the water would become contaminated by sea water intrusion near the bay. This would have permanently destroyed the use of all of our water and effectively killed the community of Los Osos.
    
The use of the Broderson recharge site would have resulted in surface flooding within a few years. If it actually allowed deeper percolation for a short time, the water would have lubricated the potential for mass movement of the water-saturated sand downhill during an earthquake. In addition, it would have resulted in water surfacing downhill about half way down the street from the Methodist church and the bay. All of these would have required millions of more dollars to attempt to fix the problems created by the ill-conceived original sewer fix.
    
All of these are examples of the creeping costs we would have encountered with the fatally flawed Tri-W treatment site and Broderson wastewater recharge location. We must know the full extent of all parts of the sewer and know its full final cost before we approve the vote for this new sewer. We cannot allow these creeping costs to destroy Los Osos.

Q. How have ethics been violated in this process?

A. Ethics violations are notoriously difficult to identify. This is because any under-the-table bribes to members of the RWQCB staff have been carefully disguised. This could include the staff members accepting services from major multinational sewage treatment companies. These giant companies may have been providing legal counsel to ensure a massive sewer would be installed here. These large companies want to ensure they can survive.
    
The survival of these major multinational sewer treatment companies has become less certain because the new process for wastewater treatment calls for a more environmentally friendly process using a more modular approach with smaller, replaceable parts and more redundancy rather than a giant plant with one-style-fits-all communities. This new engineering concept has developed mainly since the turn of the millennium.
    
The RWQCB has continually attempted to contact the empty lot owners to agitate them to force issues that would allow them to build if they forced a full-blown sewer. However, these people will not be able to build because we have already exceeded the effective safe water yield for this basin. The RWQCB uses these people as unethical pawns holding out the potential promise of future construction of homes on these empty lots, whereas with the safe water yield of the basin being exceeded, they will not be able to build to the anticipated housing limit suggested by County Planning.
    
Apparently, the sewer has become a personal vendetta against Los Osos by some of the staff members of the RWQCB. This lack of objectivity has resulted in only cursory review of the proposals for the sewer. This is one reason so many fatal flaws have been approved in the past and may continue with the new proposal. They will be more than happy if Los Osos citizens will have to pay millions upon millions of dollars more for errors in the sewer. In addition, the fact the RWQCB receives more money when the sewer is larger, means they have a conflict of interest regarding the size of the sewer.

Q. Do you believe the “fatal flaws” in the Tri-W site project justified stopping it?  Do you see these same “fatal flaws” stopping the project again this time around, even if approved by the County and RWQCB?

A. The treatment site location must consider what I believe are a fatal flaw from the human health perspective. Because of the persistent fog, any viruses entrapped in the air due to movement of the sewage and wastewater will result in a major down wind direction effect of contaminating residents close to the treatment facility. This effect is well known in the wastewater community where sewage treatment personnel are often fairly sick for the first several years until they become immune through previous exposure to these various viruses and microbes.
    
However, these health problems are much more serious for susceptible individuals (infants, elderly and those having a compromised immune system). Ideally, the treatment facility should be completely enclosed and all air leaving the facility should be treated with UV radiation to reduce the possibility of this happening in Los Osos.
    
Locating the treatment facility to the east of Los Osos (as proposed by the Ripley Pacific Engineering plan) would greatly reduce this health threat.
    
Any way we can prevent major health problems for our citizens is an ethical mandate for the community. Allowing the previous sewer or even the new sewer process (to be adopted by the TAC and approved by the County Board of Supervisors) must ensure the current and future health of all of our citizens. This is a primary concern. In fact, this is the hidden concern of water quality for which the RWQCB is acting to force the gigantic sewer on Los Osos.

Q. Why is the County wasting time and millions of dollars of our tax money on a 218 vote with no specific project and no cap? Are they purposefully shooting themselves in the foot to make their failure look like an accident, or are they just too stupid for words when it comes to understanding Los Osos?

A. The 218 vote itself is an interesting tool. It was designed by the legislature to force communities to have a sewer. It was intended to hoodwink most of the people and have them approve a pig in a poke (a proposed sewer with many problems in the design) long before the true design and problems were revealed.
    
We should demand an actual cap on the total cost of the proposed sewer. This can only be determined after we know what all of the components of the sewer will be. In addition, we must assess all of the potential fatal flaws and work out solutions without fatal flaws, allowing the community to install an effectively functioning economical system. Once all of these are accomplished, then it will be appropriate to have a 218 vote with a cap on the total cost and well informed citizens understanding how each of the parts functions to provide the treatment and recycling of wastewater.
    
Slick multicolored brochures may be nice, but if the system is highly flawed all you have is a slick multicolored brochure supporting a fatally flawed sewer proposal. We should correct the problems first. Then, and only then, should we worry about the advertising to sell the project. In fact, this community is highly educated. They do not want to be insulted by glitz from brochures. They want to know all of the facts about the system, all of its components and how all of the previous problems have been changed to meet all of the needs of the citizens of Los Osos.

Q. How has the intervention of Blakeslee impacted the Los Osos sewer project, i.e. circumvented the will of the people of Los Osos?

A. Another paternalistic action was the process Blakeslee used to become the white knight. How often has the state government imposed its will upon the properly elected citizens of Los Angeles or San Francisco in a similar manner?  Those who would lose from a significant very expensive conventional sewer installation wanted to ensure a major sewer project would continue in Los Osos. This state intervention had nothing to do with local politics or the capabilities of the CSD members to provide direction to the community process. It is all about ensuring gigantic multinational sewer corporations can win in Los Osos. If they can win, then they can impose their own very expensive wills in every other small community in the nation. Los Osos is recognized worldwide as a test case of gigantic multinational sewer corporations versus reasonable community-wide small to medium-size modular sewer projects to use the most modern technology at ecologically-applicable means and economical costs.
    
Normal financing companies would reject bonds for Los Osos due to the recent CSD default. However, I believe funds will be available from private sources to assure a sewer can be built meeting the expectations of sensible, environmentally sound, properly functioning and economically affordable. One reason is these smaller sewer firms are also fighting for their existence. The ones who come out on top in Los Osos are likely to be the ones who will be able to control the new process of sewer construction for small communities throughout the U.S.

Q. How did we come from the first bond issue of “taxation without representation” to today’s “eminent domain by septic tank”? When did our government change from representing us to attacking us? What is the RWQCB so bent on punishment rather than improving water quality? How much of this is “the politics of pollution”?

A. It is questionable whether our government ever represented us. The basic problem of septic tanks in Los Osos was almost entirely due to the County itself. The County knew the lots were too small for effective septic tank processing. Regardless, to prevent saying no to any developer, the County continued to approve of many new lots to be used for new housing developments without insisting these lots be combined into larger units which would effectively meet the code.  Larger lots do exist in Los Osos and are mainly outside of the prohibition zone.
    
Even today the County refuses to bite the bullet and tell developers no new houses can be built in Los Osos. The reason is we have already over used our total water yield for this water basin. This means we will continue to mine the ground water and create sea water intrusion thereby destroying our own water source completely. This will kill the Los Osos community.
    
The major process is one that began with the RWQCB making an error by declaring an emergency situation existed in Los Osos. The RWQCB declared a nitrate problem existed in 1983. This was done to ensure Los Osos could qualify for state and federal funding of a sewer. This was a good intention, but it was premature. Since this time, the RWQCB has desperately tried to find any reason for saying this nitrate problem exists. More nitrate data has indicated the nitrate level of the ground water has increased, albeit many of the access wells used have been installed improperly and had failed to be sealed from surface contamination.
    
The RWQCB has to cover their behind because of their hasty declaration in 1983. The demonstration of effective denitrification by the septic systems in Los Osos (as reported in the “Nitrate Study of Los Osos”) was a sore thumb in their eye. Consequently, this became a political problem of trying to seek revenge against the intelligence of the citizens who mobilized to poke holes in the various forms of desperation that the RWQCB has invoked.
    
These include saying nitrate in the water or Morro Bay is due to improperly functioning septic tanks, but in reality this nitrate was from animals (deer, etc.) coming down to the Sweet Springs and to water pools near the bay at night. A septic tank functions when the water moves downward. If the water moves upward, the septic tank soil over the leach field also removes contaminants.
    
The RWQCB has attempted to prove DNA in Morro Bay comes from Los Osos septic tanks.  However, they have never been able to do this. If this were clearly demonstrated the County Health Department would have become involved and shut down the septic tank use. This has not happened in Los Osos.
    
The final insult was the recent visit by the Congressman from Indiana and Lois Capps touring the bay mud. What does the presence of bay mud have to do with Los Osos sewers? Do sand dunes contribute to this fine clay mud? Note the desperation of the RWQCB to paint a tar brush on Los Osos. They tried somehow to suggest the mud caused by Los Osos sewers.

Q. With more growth, more demands on our decreasing water supply, more competition for water and water sources, how can we best avoid state water in this crush? How is state water dangerous and flawed?

A. First of all, the question assumes more growth. We in California must realize a limit exists to growth. The limit of our growth is the total water yield of the basin. Once this limit has been exceeded, growth must cease. Everyone is afraid to bell the cat of the developers. Everyone seems to bow down to the great god of development and believe this is the only way for any community to prosper. However, one must ask, what happens when a community can no longer grow in population? The community can succeed by changing the focus of what it does. This will be easily accomplished because of the high level of educational accomplishments of the citizens.
    
The County and the RWQCB have ignored the nature of the people in Los Osos. For many years they assumed the community was full of dissidents only interested in trying to prevent having a sewer. Los Osos contains the most highly educated people per 1000 individuals between Monterey and Ventura. The reality is they do not want to pay for a non-functioning sewer rat hole with the obvious escalating costs associated with problems poorly examined (as was the fatal flaw with the recharge at the Broderson site for example).

Q. Why can’t we take better advantage of the rapid advances and new technologies in water processing? Doesn’t the County owe Los Osos the best technologies available, rather than only dated  technologies approvable by the RWQCB?

A. Many amazing technologies have recently been developed with much superior and effective water processing in the past few years. Within the past decade a major mindset change has occurred in the wastewater industry. This new mind set essentially argues previous massive sewer installations should be avoided because of the serious problems (long term they create) and the realization smaller is more efficient, effective with lower long-term maintenance and providing better water quality at a much lower treatment cost.
    
It has been highly depressing to read (in the new TAC report) how the County intends to force the conventional gravity sewer onto the community of Los Osos with bait-and-switch tactics and a blank-check mentality. All parts of the sewer as currently conceived will contain fatal flaws that should have been eliminated, but they continue to reappear time and again in report after report without correction.
    
Somewhere an engineering firm will have to bite the bullet and say these are fatal flaws and they cannot install this sewer. I vividly recall County Engineer George Gibson many times reminded the first wastewater alternatives TAC, the many problems in Los Osos may very likely prevent the proper functioning of any installed sewer in this community.
    
The various geologic and hydrologic models clearly indicate the nitrates under Los Osos will not clear up even with an installed sewer for at least 40 years.

In all probability, the nitrates will take much longer to disappear.
    
If the community is classified as a toxic waste dump, then the RWQCB will be required to clean it up because they took responsibility for it when they issued the letters of condemnation. Obviously, by evicting all homeowners and rendering their property worthless, the property cannot be sold to pay for cleaning up the nitrate problem. Where will the funds come from to be able to declare Los Osos a non-toxic waste site? All of these constitute unprecedented actions. They clearly indicate acts of desperation by the RWQCB and have not been processed to their logical conclusions.
    
Be aware of the previous bait-and-switch process. They allow the TAC to develop many useful ideas. Then at the very last minute, all previous work is negated by claiming many “fatal flaws” resulting in all previous work having no value. Consequently, only the new ideas with no opportunity to evaluate their impacts publicly are forced upon the community. This has occurred several times in the past in Los Osos.
    
The bait-and-switch tactics consisted of the first wastewater TAC exploring the various wastewater alternatives (over 20 were examined). This TAC had reached a consensus to move ahead with the sewer. After we made our presentation to the County Board of Supervisors, the engineer presumably working with us (but who had refused to meet with us or share any information) made the “voodoo economics” presentation charging the cost of the conventional sewer against all of the other proposals we knew were much less in cost. This was the first example.
    
The bait-and-switch tactics continued with the vote to approve the creation of the CSD. The citizens were under the impression the Solutions Group’s proposal for a ponding system would be used. All of a sudden from nowhere, the full-blown sewer at the Tri-W site with the Broderson recharge was adopted. Many citizens were waiting to learn when they would be voting on the approval of this indebtedness. The legal counsel explained they could circumvent the law in this case. Clearly, this was a form of taxation without representation of the full electorate on a bond issue as occurs in nearly every California State election on bond issues.  These bonds are voted on with a clearly indicated cost and the implications of the resulting passage or failure of the vote.
    
What is needed is to provide a clearly reasoned comparison step wide of why each option was chosen and why each other alternative was rejected. The people of Los Osos do not want to spend more money on colored brochures, they want more solid clearly argued thinking with more effective and assured results for these steps in the sewer process. They deserve to have a clear understanding of the bottom-line cost and have an “Economic Impact Analysis” indicating the true impact on both those within and those outside of the prohibition zone.
    
Many times the County Engineering or the RWQCB has claimed the new technologies have not been “tested.” They are speaking from a position of ignorance. Modern sewer technologies have been tested by having been installed and are functioning in many parts of the U.S. and in various countries of the world. When these people say they have not been tested, they are revealing their ignorance of modern sewer technologies. Also, they are strongly biasing the process by saying, “We do not want to use any modern technology. Why should we when our minds are already made up and we know the best thing for Los Osos is the conventional gigantic sewer for a city of 2 million people?”
    
This is the mind set we must guard against because it is another example of how the County Engineering and the RWQCB has a phobia first of new technology and second of how they want to force the gigantic conventional sewer upon the citizens of Los Osos when modern sewer technology with modular design capabilities will serve our needs adequately and newer designs which have been proven through successful implementation and operation in many other locations.
    
They use the egotistical excuse it has not been done in this specific region of the RWQCB.  This is very self serving. One should ask why they are so reactive and have such a phobia against allowing these proven technologies in this region of the RWQCB. Are they afraid the conventional sewer will be seen as not performing as adequately as will the newly developed sewer technologies? Are they in the pocket of the gigantic sewer companies and cannot allow any new proven technologies to be used here because they have already compromised their ethics by accepting bribes or services under the table? We may never know, but it does not prevent reasonable people of asking why modern technology is rejected with such lame excuses when these technologies are exactly what will save Los Osos from the fatal flaws of the conventional sewer system.
    
It appears to be highly unethical for professionals to dismiss out of hand any new technologies. What ethical responsibility does the County Engineering and the RWQCB have to provide an open and unbiased approach to any and all new technologies?