Community Corner
Orange County Public Works: 2 Lumps Of Coal For 25 Years Of Nothing
Part I of a 2 Part, "South Orange County 2022 Christmas Presents Series" or "How Orange County Public Works Earns Our Scroogie, 24/7/365."
The Orange County Board of Supervisors (OCBOS), their legal counselors and upper echelon minions have long sought to force the domestic (potable) water and wastewater recycling utilities into sharing, and hopefully worse, into taking total responsibility regarding water quality impairments and stormwater permit compliance violations throughout our SOC streams, many of which inevitably hit the Pacific . “Scrooges” all.
There’s a case to be made that they’ve not only outright shirked and deflected, discursively minimized their accountability, but denied their own obligations: More recently, since 2015, they’ve attempted to make the water utilities their "fall guys" in case of challenges, i.e., litigation assessed damages exposure, fund/co-fund compliance programs that rightfully should be pursued and underwritten solely by the County and our 10 SOC cities.
They’ve contorted and distorted science, and in a grossly biased cherry-picking manner. Anything that leaves them less liable and justifies the syphoning of funds from the water utilities to pay for their failures is fair in the impairment, finger-pointing blame game they’ve embraced.
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Make it someone else’s fault, make these utilities partially or fully subsidize and get the County’s ass out of the waterbody compliance wringer in one fell swoop. Ironic because according to their own contractual agreements with the State, the delegated responsibilities and funding for stormwater oversight, to integrate and implement things like Best Management Practices (BMPs), are OCPW.
My NGO, CLEAN WATER NOW, as Christmas presents, is awarding not 1 but 2 lumps of coal on this, our mutual Silver Anniversary---the commemoration we share with both South OC watershed and water quality management activities as administered by OC Public Works (OCPW). We’re feeling generous, and then too who better deserves both lumps, hmmmm?
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One lump (Part 1) is a holiday gift to the SOC Stormwater Division administrators regarding the NPDES Stormwater Permit compliance process they, as primary lead agency and principal permittee, are responsible for implementing.
Part 2 will be specific to the farce that is SOC Watershed Management Area “efforts,” actually horrendous lack of progress or oversight thereof hence the underlined rabbit ears. I’ll explain the Silver Anniversary sobriquet in Part 2.
Regulatory Background
“The California State Water Resource Control Board and the nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards (RWQCB), through the federal and state Clean Water Acts, help address water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants, such as stormwater and non-stormwater discharges, to waters of the United States under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permitting Program.
These MS4 Permits require the development of the stormwater program(s) that aim to (1) effectively prohibit non-stormwater discharges into the storm drain system and (2) reduce the discharge of pollutants to the maximum extent practicable through the implementation of best management practices (BMPs) and other control strategies. These two permits also incorporate Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL). A TMDL sets a limit for the total amount of a particular pollutant that can be discharged into a water body, which ensures that pollutant loads from various sources will not impair the designated beneficial uses of the water body.”
We in SOC are at the outer limits edge of San Diego RWQCB’s jurisdictional boundary (Region 9, Cal/EPA), and I’d give their staff and BODs a lump too if we had more left in inventory. It was the SDRWQCB back in 2015 that accepted an alternative path to compliance via a modified Water Quality Improvement Plan (WQIP).
Being this far north and divided by Camp Pendleton, we're the outlier, the "Uranus" of SDRWQCB's planetary system.
That’s okay, we at CWN know that there will be a next year and another round of ongoing disappointments by government. So hope should spring eternal down in San Diego, we haven't forgotten you, k? You might not have seen this train wreck coming, but we did.
The two (2) major sections of that SOC, 2015 NPDES WQMP in the pursuit of eventual MS4 compliance are the Flow Ecologies Special Study (FESS) and the Comprehensive Human Waste Source Reduction Strategy (CHWSRS) work plan.
Only thing of value in our opinion that was coughed up in the FESS endeavor surprised many stakeholders. After a decade of my NGO pressing OCPW to perform isotopic testing, cheapskates always griping that it was too expensive, they finally capitulated and did.
It revealed that approximately 1/3 of watercourse flows during non-rainy periods were chloraminated, that is came from domestic, treated supplies.
Here’s the linkage if you’re a wonk:
Obvious to me in 2015 was the general strategy, as both a regulatory analyst as well as eco-protectionist: If OCPW and its divisions, plus its permitting partners, could toss the hot potato that is illicit, excess urban runoff containing innumerable, complex contaminants into someone else’s lap, let them bear the brunt of enforcement and 3rd party/NGO lawsuits, then "Mission Accomplished."
Theory simplified? Both the ubiquitous high concentrations of pathogenic bacteria and pollutants sampled, confirmed present, plus their conveyor mechanisms (unnatural, non-rainy seasonal flows) are directly attributable to utility shortcomings. Pass the buck logic, and cheaply accomplished at that.
After nearly 8 years post-certification, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for their staff and vendors/consultants, OCPW should be blushing with shame. Unfortunately, though both FESS and CHWSRS failed to make the case for utilities being primary scape goats, no smoking guns, no one in Santa Ana seems embarrassed.
Yet utilities were forced to refute and counter-argue, to spend enormous sums on their own consultants, dedicate staff time, all to contest both over years of investigations and worthless, meandering, non-conclusive stakeholder meetings.
“That’s all folks,” as Porky Pig might idiotically utter: No conclusions, just more monitoring, more studies, an indeterminately long daisy chain of more expensive "snipe hunts" with no guaranteed endgame, i.e., a “Forever Hall Pass.” Protracted delays and constant denial are OCPW's best pals, ditto for "Unicorn Expeditions" like CHWSRS.
Think of your water provider as a very successful and wonderfully responsible car manufacturer. Every minute, of every hour, of every day, they not only bring a Rolls-Royce quality, i.e., safe, healthy water supplies to your door, into your homes and businesses: They also accept and dispose of your sewage, either treating it to ocean discharge standards from plants per EPA or the burden of reclaiming, then redistributing it to Title 22 Irrigation standards.
This helps to offset ultimate usage of potable both physically and costs financially. Irrigation supplies should be directed for larger open spaces, potable for indoors (human consumption). Unfortunately, the dominant residual and business units are wasting potable by watering greenscape.
Until districts have extended the plumbing throughout their service areas like an arterial blood system, an expensive retrofitting task in densely developed areas is the only tactic. So right now it's baby steps, otherwise there'd be humungous rare increase which in turn would trigger outrage.
The option of using Title 22 on property to offset/reduce potable use is a mine field of problems. In urbanized/developed areas, retrofitting to accomplish that is not just tedious hence expensive (block by block), but rates would then have to go up and streets torn up to install a parallel system. District's would face the two smoking gun barrels of outraged customers plus inconvenienced drivers!
Basically, SOC residents have a refined, reliable vehicle fine-tuned and in excellent running condition 24/7/365. If the owner (water user) can’t operate said vehicle prudently, that’s on them, up to the MS4 permittee to monitor and yes, to cite them for bad behavior and ecological impacts.
Demanding that utilities become de facto MS4 enforcement (read permit holders), cops that punish bad behavior, is obscenely ludicrous. Due to State mandates, providers have been tightening their distribution belt allotments as much as possible to comply with conservation goals and objectives.
2 Districts especially are committed to doing their fiduciary fare share to protect SOC's enviro-heritage while still providing excellent service: Moulton Niguel and Santa Margarita.
As long as that best vehicle available was perfectly safe at point of purchase, manufacturers shouldn’t be responsible once driven off the lot…….nor for drunken drivers and the calamities they inflict, when things go wrong, should they?
If citizens abuse the privilege of supplies brought to their doors, over-water carelessly, discharging hence polluting our waterways, and though aware, their local MS4 oversight departments do nothing, that’s on the permittees, not the utilities. And what has the County and its permittees done about those flows at ground zero in the neighborhoods? Beats me.
Strategies to convert, to harvest and cleanse all wastewater and urban runoff surpluses to Title 17 drinking water standards (potable) are in progress by innovative leaders at Santa Margarita and Moulton Niguel Water Districts respectively. Independence and Autonomy to the maximum extent practicable without a significant debt service burden placed upon ratepayers.
A strong emphasis in these 2 district portfolios addresses and one that follows Sacramento’s 2022 conservation and consumption mandates is REUSE, plus reduced reliance upon foreign developed importations----from up north or the Colorado River.
The utilities, if forward-thinking and progressive like MDWD and SMWD, ARE ramping up their efforts, investing in a responsibly methodical fashion. Don’t be shy, go to one of their meetings, ask tough questions, see and hear it first-hand yourselves. You're the customer. Become engaged and educate yourselves.
These 2 Districts have ALREADY begun to share the logistical and fiscal MS4 burdens voluntarily in their pursuit of reclaimable local resources. And yes, they ARE in a sense partially underwriting MS4 compliance without accolades or acknowledgement by diverting, by recovering and cleansing urban runoff. Exemplary fiduciary operations, meritoriously high-functioning performances, btw.
Over 6 years ago, OCPW admitted that they had identified "smoking guns," nearly 100 (at minimum 15,000 gallons/day) pipes that discharged from permittee MS4 systems into watercourses throughout SOC.
God knows how many others there are which might be smaller volume-wise, but nonetheless millions of gallons of polluted flows per day that THEY and their MS4 co-permittee constituents should be held accountable for by the SDRWQCB.
Both the County and MS4 co-permittees should be sanctioned, fined for misconduct, and the individual citizen or business culprits per the MS4 source-tracked and elimination mandated to achieve compliance. Using the California Public Records Act (CPRA), I requested and acquired a SOC archive of 5 years duration beginning in 2015, ending in 2019 from OCPW’s database.
Hundreds and hundreds of field reports about identified urban runoff scofflaws. A paltry few got hand slap warnings, even though repeat transgressors. A pitifully few got Notices of Violation (NOVs), yet not one monetary fine.
Like traffic tickets for running a stop sign or red light, deterrence drives compliance not rampant permissiveness. Whose going to comply if they’re no consequences? "Behavioral modification" must be part of the MS4 Permit compliance logic.
MS4 violators should be outed in your local media’s “Police Blotter,” public pillory shaming with a sliding, increasing penalty scale for repeat wasteful offenders codified AND enforced.
In Part 2, I’ll reveal the other lump award rationale, the 2nd shoe of glaring culpability and disturbing sloth by our ever so jolly friends at County governance.
