The Rock Report: The State Water Boards and the Fleecing of California

Not only are the water boards picking the taxpayers’ pockets to make big companies richer, they are using money that is supposed to be used to clean up the environment to do it, wasting limited dollars on unnecessary projects that benefit no one but big business and pals. In the battle of public interest versus big business-big government, the people are losing big-time. Here’s how, where, and some indicators why...

Ethics and Illegalities
    In their dealings with Los Osos, the state and local water boards have engaged in activities that give rise to serious questions regarding their ethics. The boards used invalid, manufactured data to support establishment of a prohibition zone that many believe is illegal, used information taken out of context to support claims that septic systems are not effective in wastewater treatment, and participated in the funding of an illegal loan to finance an over-priced, unnecessary sewer that the majority of citizens did not want. When citizens fought back, the local board attacked with cease-and-desist orders, in an attempt to intimidate its victims into submission.  

CDOs, Voodoo Science and Competency
    Besides ethics issues, the CDOs bring up questions of competence. In an interview published in July-August issue of The Rock, wastewater treatment expert Dr. Dan Wickham stated, “start pumping every two months and you destroy just about any benefit (septics) can provide. Estimates say it can take one to two years to get a good anaerobic community established. Actually I think that is probably an overestimate. But there is no way you can get biological treatment in a septic tank in just two months. And if there is no treatment then the only benefit you get is from the 1,000 gallons you remove at each pumping. The other 18,000 gallons during the rest of the two months now has virtually no treatment.”
    Assuming that 19,000 gallons is an average monthly amount for a Los Osos household, multiply the untreated 18,000 by 45, the number of CDOs initially issued, and that’s 810,000 gallons of untreated sewage going straight to the leach fields every two months—and the board is threatening more CDOs.
    Unless the board members are incompetent, they must have known that pumping a septic tank every two months would have the effect described by Dr. Wickham. Unless their legal staff is incompetent, they must have known that the other actions they were taking would not stand any serious legal test. Assuming that they knew these things, why would they take illegal and unwise actions that would put both their ethics and their competence in such serious doubt?

Increased Pressure from Big Business
    In the summer of 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger’s hand-picked government reform task force delivered the “California Performance Review” which recommended the elimination of several state boards and commissions, including the State Water Resources Control Board. The task force, which reportedly included no environmentalists, recommended reorganizing most of the state's environmental agencies under two new departments, Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.
    Big business had significant influence on the recommendations included in the Review. Tom Chorneau’s September 3, 2004 article, “US: Chevron donates to Schwarzenegger, Gets Removal of Restrictions on Oil Refineries in California,” published by CorpWatch, noted that “Chevron, whose officials acknowledge they lobbied hard to get their ideas in the report, is one of about 20 companies that paid to send the governor and his staff to this week’s Republican National Convention in New York. On Wednesday, Schwarzenegger attended a closed-door meeting in New York with representatives of those companies, including Chevron. And just three weeks after the governor's office released the 2,700-page reorganization report, the company gave $100,000 to a Schwarzenegger-controlled political fund.” And, “Environmental watchdogs and local agencies that regulate some of Chevron's operations complain that they had no such access, and that their counterproposals appear nowhere in the massive report.”
    Elimination of the water boards would have potentially given big business more influence over clean water regulations and their enforcement. Most business and industry representatives, in theory, cannot serve on the regional boards because of conflict-of-interest regulations, so centralizing control over the regulations and the enforcement process, under a pro-business administration, would have been an attractive alternative, one that was strongly opposed by environmentalists.  
    For the water boards, the writing was on the wall. Big business was not happy, and this meant that board members might soon be out of work. However, the governor seems to have backed away from his original position, and now, two years later, the water boards are still in business. Is this because the environmentalists had more influence on the governor than the business interests, or because big business is now happier with what the water boards are doing? Perhaps the governor was able to placate them with the appointment of pro-business people to the state and regional boards. Perhaps it is all of the above.
    History shows that the water boards have, in the past, supported big business and some government entities on three fronts. The first of these is the generation of huge pork-barrel water- cleanup projects that enable engineering and construction firms to make millions, create infrastructure desired by developers, and increase the flow of money into some local government agencies. The second is the support of big housing and/or industrial development projects, which enrich not only the developers, but local government agencies as well. The third is the boards’ decisions that allow some industrial and government polluters to get away with ongoing damage to the environment, and unacceptable risks to health and safety.

Water Cleanup Systems for Profit—the Pork-Barrel Projects
   The building of water cleanup systems makes money for engineering firms, and for developers. Writing for the Point Reyes Light, Lloyd Kahn, well-known advocate of environmentally-friendly housing and lifestyles, discussed attempts to force a sewer onto citizens of Monte Rio. “The same exact modus operandi used in Bolinas a decade earlier, to wit: a lot of taxpayer money is available for ‘clean water,’ a very large industry has emerged consisting of bureaucrats and engineers. They declare a false health hazard, based on bogus science and total lack of data. The usual ones are huge numbers of septic tanks are ‘failing’ or, if you're near a beach, bay or river, ‘the e-coli are coming.’” This scenario is all too familiar to the residents of Los Osos.
    In her article, “Decentralized Wastewater Management: Linking Land Use, Planning & Environmental Protection,” published by the American Planning Association, Juli Beth Hoover stated, “Fundamentally, decentralized wastewater management is growth neutral. Where central sewers, as traditionally planned, financed and operated, involve inherent financial incentives to create additional system users through land development, the decentralized approach does not.”  
    Beth Hoover further stated, “Sewer lines can be extended with the best of intentions, usually to remedy public health hazards. Once done, however, new growth to tie in to the extended line becomes an expected consequence, necessary to pay user fees to cover the cost of that new infrastructure.” Clearly, a sewer system would provide infrastructure that would support major development projects in Los Osos.
    In an article published in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Carol Benfell wrote, “County supervisors took aim at the state's proposed septic system regulations Tuesday, saying the rules would increase public health risks and force people out of their homes.” And, “The state water board has said that it will work with homeowners to find solutions, which could include creating community-wide sewer systems.” Did the board make this offer out of the goodness of its members’ collective hearts, or did they do it to further the interests of developers?

Zero Tolerance for Stormwater Runoff—the Next Big Money Maker?
    Los Osos, Bolinas, and Monte Rio citizens know only too well how the water boards push unnecessary sewer systems that benefit engineering and development interests, but there is more. Besides sewer systems, other water cleanup infrastructure can generate big profits for engineering and construction firms.
    In Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove, a scenario remarkably similar to that of the sewer system fiascos was described in Kelly Nix’s November 4, 2005 article published in the Carmel Pinecone. If the water boards’ were successful in pushing their zero-tolerance urban runoff policy, then “to comply with the state’s order as it stands, Carmel, Pacific Grove and Monterey would have to build multimillion-dollar storm drain systems that would prevent stormwater from running to the sea. There are thousands of storm drains throughout the Monterey Peninsula.
     According to the article, some groups asserted that the boards needed to “conduct specific scientific tests to determine how stormwater is damaging ocean waters, instead of imposing a blanket, zero-tolerance rule.” And some who oppose the board’s policy cited “studies by experts at Hopkins Marine Station who have been unable to identify any negative effects of stormwater discharge into the Hopkins Marine Life Refuge.” The article also noted the suggestion that, “in the absence of any data indicating negative effects of stormwater discharge on coastal marine ecosystems, the expenditure of resources to eliminate stormwater discharge into this ASBS is not warranted.”
    With a lack of any valid evidence that runoff from their communities was causing damage, Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove would be forced to accept huge, pork-barrel engineering/development projects to address the alleged, but unproven risk to the environment.
    Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove are only a few of the towns that would be affected, if the water boards have their way. Those multimillion-dollar stormdrain systems would be required up and down California’s coast, creating numerous opportunities for engineering and construction firms.

Support of Questionable Development over a Toxic Waste Dump in Richmond
    An interesting example of the water boards’ inappropriate support of developers’ interests is the saga of one developer’s attempt to build a huge condominium complex over a toxic waste dump, located in Richmond, a bayside community in Northern California.
    In a series of articles beginning in the spring of 2004, Richard Brenneman, writing for the Berkeley Daily Planet, told of the proposed development. “To Richmond officials, it looked like a much-needed boost to an ailing city and a major source of new city revenues. To a Marin County developer and a pension fund investment firm, it looked like a cash cow, the site for a 1,330-unit high-rise shoreline condominium complex. But to a growing number of South Richmond residents, it looks like a toxic menace, a threat to the health of themselves, their friends and families. For 100 years, industrial plants at the site of what is know today as Campus Bay churned out an array of chemicals ranging from sulfuric acid to potent pesticides.”
    The development site, which held an 86-acre chemical manufacturing complex for 100 years, ending in 1997, was found to contain, among many other things, radioactive elements, elevated levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, benzene, tetrachloroethylene [PCE], trichlorethylene [TCE] and vinyl chloride. Shallow groundwater was also found to be contaminated with VOCs. Yet, the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which had been the primary regulator of the site, OK’d plans to build over the hazardous materials
    Brenneman went on to describe the drama of concerned citizens versus development interests, and the dubious plan to bury the toxic material and simply build on top of it. “The LFR Levine-Fricke plan for the housing project prohibits any ground floor residential units. Instead, sunken parking levels would feature fans to blow out volatile organic compounds that would inevitably escape from the cap. Residents would be barred from planting vegetable gardens and grassy areas would be off-limits to children.” Despite continued opposition from the community, “Water board officials repeatedly assured critics that all was well, but Carr, Padgett and others weren’t buying.”
    In a November, 9, 2004 article, Brenneman wrote, “Bowing to public and legislative pressure, state officials Monday agreed to a change in jurisdiction over the toxic cleanup of Campus Bay, the South Richmond site where developers hope to build a condo project atop a hazardous waste dump.” And, “Speaker after speaker at Saturday’s meeting voiced outrage at the water board’s handling of the site and demanded that site jurisdiction be removed from the San Francisco Regional Water Control Board over to the DTSC.”

Failure to Enforce Chloride Controls in Ventura
    In November, 2005, the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. reported that the Los Angeles Regional Water Board had “declined to expedite the reconsideration of water quality rules that allow large quantities of chloride to be discharged to the Santa Clara River.”
    The article noted that two sewage treatment plants operated by the Los Angeles County Sanitation District were discharging millions of pounds of chloride each year into the Santa Clara River watershed. The article stated that, “By delaying any reconsideration until May 2006, the Regional Water Board has sent a not-too-subtle message that the interest of the Santa Clara River watershed’s largest polluter takes precedence over protecting downstream beneficial user of water.”

Business-Friendly Members of the State Water Boards?
    Both boards are dominated by Schwarzenegger appointees (four out of five on the state board are his people, and chairs and vice-chairs of both were appointed by him), some of whose past ties to big business and to organizations that support its interests are easy to identify from material in their published biographies.

Doduc and McLaren-Hart
    According to her biography published by the water board, State Water Board chair Tam Doc began her career in 1989 as an “environmental consultant” with the now-defunct McLaren Hart, sometimes referred to as McLaren-Hart-Chemrisk. The firm, which billed itself as an environmental research and consulting company, is notorious for having falsified test results to support the interests of one of its biggest clients, PG&E, which hired them to help with its defense in the well-known “Erin Brockovich case.”  
    In 1995, McLaren-Hart-Chemrisk was doing work for PG&E, whose dumping of chromium-6 had contaminated the drinking water in Hinkley, California. They hired Dr. Zhang Jian Dong for “document review and consultation regarding epidemiology, groundwater contamination and health effects of chromium.” They then altered his writings, and had them published under his name in the “Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine” (JOEM) and the “Archives of Environmental Health,” despite Zhang’s written objection. Years later, the deception was revealed.
    McLaren-Hart-Chemrisk also published material downplaying the dangers of dioxins. A 1997 study, published in The American Chemical Society’s journal, “Environmental Science and Technology,” was conducted jointly by McLaren/Hart-ChemRisk and Karch & Associates. It claimed that there was little evidence that human exposure to dioxins presented an increased risk of cancer. Interestingly, on February 14, 1997, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, announced that one of the dioxins was a class one carcinogen.  
    According to David Michaels, an environmental research professor at George Washington University who served as assistant secretary for Environment, Safety and Health at the U.S. Department of Energy from 1998 through January 2001, “There is a whole industry that exists to convince regulators that exposures aren’t dangerous in order to get companies off the hook.”  Some have suggested that McLaren-Hart fell into that category.
    Was Doduc unduly influenced by her former employer? While such influence would be difficult to prove, the possibility is cause for concern.  

Secundy, the CCEEB and the Planning and Conservation League
    According to his biography, also published by the water board, vice chair Jerry Secundy had a long career working for ARCO.  “He was also a Director for the California Council for Environmental & Economic Balance (CCEEB), of which he is the former Chairman, and the Planning and Conservation League.”
    In his article, “Paper Trail, Chemical Industry Documents Reveal Deceptions,” Raheem F. Hosseini stated that the CCEEB was formed “to combat proposed legislation and ballot measures designed to stiffen toxics regulations and penalties. In this regard, it used its own experts to compile a softer list of hazardous materials to present to lawmakers, provided a critique of California regulations, and conducted a public opinion poll to improve industry messages.”
    Hosseini further stated, “A CCEEB representative who would identify herself to the SN&R only as Cindy said, ‘We are not a front group for the chemical industry,’ noting that its board includes representatives from businesses, labor and the general public. She said her group is well-thought-of by the NRDC and Sierra Club, although sources within these environmental group say the CCEEB is little more than the voice of industry.“
    The CCEB has also been assailed for its questionable connections to utility companies. In their article, “California Utilities’ Donations Shed Light On Blackout Crisis,” John Dunbar and Robert Moore said, “The utilities enjoyed tremendous access to legislators. During wrangling over details of the deregulation bill, a nonprofit organization backed by energy companies used a loophole in California ethics laws that exempts not-for-profits from a $300 limit on gifts to lawmakers. The group set up a series of worldwide junkets.
    “In 1996, the organization paid to send Brulte to Europe, along with another primary sponsor of the bill and two California Public Utility commissioners, a trip the organizers said was intended to study deregulation. The organization, the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, has representatives of all three utilities on its board of directors.”
    Secundy’s former alliance with the Planning and Conservation League may also raise more than a few eyebrows. According to a fact sheet, “Planning and Conservation League 'Environmental Group' Supports Utility Companies' Bailout of Nuclear Power; Gets $70,000 from Utilities,” published by the Foundation for Taxpayers and Human Rights, the League was involved in a scheme in 1998 to defeat Proposition 9, an initiative that would have lowered electricity rates by 37%.  
    The fact sheet states that the initiative targeted a 1996 law that “forced residential and small business to pay a $28 billion tax to bail out the three utilities' mistaken investments in nuclear and other environmentally destructive power plants.
    “The utility companies, desperate to defeat Prop.9, knew they couldn't argue their own case before the voters. So they paid a variety of organizations to front for them and called in favors from other groups they had supported lavishly (with ratepayer dollars) in the past.” And, “The dirtiest work of all was undertaken by a relatively unknown California environmental group known as the ‘Planning and Conservation League’ (PCL) based in Sacramento, California.
    “PCL’s Board of Directors held a meeting in June, 1998, purporting to decide whether to support or oppose Prop. 9. But, apparently unbeknownst to its own board members, the organization’s director, Gerald Meral, had already made a deal with the utility companies. The group received $30,000 from Edison, $30,000 from Pacific Gas & Electric, $10,000 from San Diego Gas & Electric, as well as $265,000 from Thermo Ecotek Corporation, a power company, according to state campaign reports.”
    In their article, “Nature and Politics—One More Whore of Babylon: The Planning and Conservation League,” Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn described the League as “little more than a green sell-out shop in Sacramento.” The authors cited a quote from John Burton, who had been asked what came to mind when the PCL was mentioned in Sacramento. “Burton shot back quickly, ‘As environmental sell-outs. Everyone in the Capitol knows that PCL is hand-maiden of the corporations. No one on the PCL board was shocked by the description.’”
    In a 2002 article about pork-barrel politics, written for the Press Enterprise, Bettye Wells Miller discussed the “Traffic Congestion Relief and Safe School Bus Initiative, an “environmental” initiative that would funnel money away from the state's general fund to pay for 45 projects favored by many of the measure’s financial backers.
    ”They’ve sold shares of their initiative,” Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association, said of the initiative’s sponsor, the Planning and Conservation League. “You couldn't get away with that sort of pork barrel in the Legislature. … It’s ‘buy your way onto the ballot and roll it into a package that looks attractive.’   
    “According to court documents and interviews … the Planning and Conservation League has a history of soliciting money to qualify ballot initiatives in exchange for including projects of interest to contributors.”

Hoppin and Agribusiness
    A joint press release by the Sierra Club, The California Coastkeeper Alliance and the NRDC assailed the appointment of Charles Hoppin to the State Water Board. Titled “Governor Appoints Agribusiness Executive to Oversee State’s Water Quality,” the release states, “The governor’s selection of yet another regulated industry representative to oversee California’s water quality is a classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse,” said Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. “Given that this board is going to have to make some tough decisions about how to regulate agricultural pollution, the public deserves a water quality representative who will protect the public interest, not the interests of polluters.”
    The release further stated, “There’s more to the board’s work than just agriculture,” said Ann Notthoff, California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “These board members decide the fate of waterways threatened by many sources of pollution, including urban runoff, sewage, agriculture and industrial discharges. We need experts with a breadth of knowledge who have shown they will protect our precious resources.
    “The governor had plenty of resumes on his desk from candidates with more expertise and a demonstrated track record of protecting water quality,” said Jim Metropulos, legislative representative with Sierra Club California. “This appointment is more about ‘business as usual’ than about clean water.”

Questionable Actions and Alliances of Local Water Board Members
    In a May 13, 2006 article in the Tribune, “Morro Bay-Cayucos Discharges Unchanged,” it was stated that, “The regional water board could not decide whether to allow it to continue to discharge partially treated wastewater into the ocean.”  
    Leslie Bowker of Los Osos, John Hayashi of Arroyo Grande and Jeffrey Young of Santa Barbara voted to renew the discharge permit with the waiver. Russell Jeffries of Salinas, Monica Hunter of Los Osos and Gary Shallcross of Monterey voted against.
    For some reason, the Board does not appear to consider Morro Bay and Cayucos’ known sewage pollution of the Bay to be a big problem. But then, Morro Bay and Cayucos already have sewers, so in this case, pushing for resolution would provide no benefit for engineering companies and developers.
    Past and present alliances to big business and organizations that support it may also be an issue for our local water board, and they are listed in the biographies of two local water board members. Like Hoppin, Hayashi has ties to Agribusiness—another case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Hunter is connected with the local branch of the Planning and Conservation League—one of Secundy’s past alliances.  

Something to Hide?
    In a March 23, 2005 article in the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal, it was reported that, “The California Water Resources Control Board and all nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards are being sued by a coalition of environmental group over whether the boards are following the law involving their public records.”
    The suit, filed by Riverlaw, As you Sow and San Bruno Mountain Watch, alleged that the boards had “prevented inspection of public records at all times during the boards' office hours; burdened requesters with the task of retaining commercial services to obtain copies of the boards' public records; neglected to make requested public records promptly available; failed to limit charges for copies of public records to the direct costs of duplication; limited the number of public records that may be reviewed, and limited the types of public records available for review.”

Los Osos’ Problems with the Boards—a Result of the Attempt to Please Big Business and Government?
    There has to be a reason why the boards push pork-barrel sewer construction projects that benefit only engineering firms, developers, and some of our local government officials, and are willing to tax citizens out of their homes in order to make those projects happen. There has to be a reason why the boards refuse to support, or even acknowledge the availability of highly effective alternative technologies that are far lest costly, but that would NOT generate huge profits and opportunities for engineering firms and developers. There has to be a reason why the boards are willing to use CDOs to create far more pollution than they claim they are trying to prevent, just to intimidate citizens into accepting an over-priced, technically inappropriate project. There must be a reason why the boards are willing to push an illegally funded loan. The Rock would like to hear their explanation.
    Meanwhile, it seems reasonable to draw the conclusion that the boards have placed the interests of Los Osos citizens far behind those of engineering firms, developers, and local government officials with something to gain.