Tag: Occidental

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Land Use, Sustainable LivingTags , , , ,

Occidental, home of sky-high sewage rates, eyes outlet in Graton, but some residents object

Guy Kovner, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Two Italian-style restaurants have drawn generations of diners to Occidental while serving pasta, pizza and soup — in recent years under the burden of the steepest sewage treatment rates in Sonoma County and among the highest in California.

Negri’s Original Italian Restaurant and the Union Hotel, both run by local families, pay about $120,000 a year in wastewater fees included in their property tax bills, shouldering much of the cost in a west county sanitation district that serves about 100 properties.

“You gotta sell a lot of ravioli to pay for that,” said Al Negri, former operator of his family’s eatery, established in 1943. “It would be fantastic if we got some relief.”

There could be some help coming from Graton, about 6 miles to the east with an underutilized wastewater plant that would profit from handling Occidental’s output of 18,000 gallons of sewage a day.

But there’s a catch: Graton’s plant is on a wooded 20-acre site north of the town with no road access, and finding a place to connect with the community’s sewer system has proved elusive. Neighborhood protests thwarted so many attempts to deal with Occidental’s wastewater that officials resorted two years ago to trucking it to a plant in an industrial area next to the county airport.

Residents of the 53-unit Blue Spruce Mobilehome Lodge on Green Valley Road in Sebastopol mobilized quickly after learning of the Graton Community Service District’s plan to build a wastewater receiving station 3 feet from the entrance to their park and 20 feet from the nearest mobile home, occupied by a 100-year-old woman and her son-in-law.

Graton’s plan calls for pumping six truckloads of untreated sewage a day into a valve on a concrete pad at the edge of a gas station at the corner of Green Valley Road and Highway 116.

A petition signed by 53 residents, some from the same family, objected to the project, and 15 people attended a Graton district board meeting last week, complaining about lack of advance notice of the project and objecting to the potential noise, traffic and odor.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10618162-181/occidental-home-of-sky-high-sewage

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sustainable Living, WaterTags , , ,

Graton may be next stop for Occidental wastewater 

Guy Kovner, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The plan will be informally introduced at a town hall meeting held by west county Supervisor Lynda Hopkins in April or early May, officials said.

Guerneville is out and Graton is now in as a potential destination for Occidental’s wastewater.
What may sound like west county musical chairs is actually the latest chapter in a 20-year effort to find an alternative for Occidental’s wastewater treatment plant, which has been under state orders since 1997 to quit discharging treated effluent into Dutch Bill Creek, a Russian River tributary and coho salmon spawning stream.
A plan to send five to 15 truckloads of untreated wastewater a day up Bohemian Highway to Guerneville was scrapped in response to protests from Guerneville residents, and officials are now considering delivery to Graton, where the local community services district has issued what amounts to an invitation.
“We’re taking a look at what might be a better option,” said Ann DuBay of the Sonoma County Water Agency, which operates the Occidental and Guerneville treatment systems and six others in the county.
Engineers are working out the details of the Occidental-to-Graton transfer between two small, rural communities, with a recommendation expected to go to the Board of Supervisors in the fall, said Cordel Stillman, the Water Agency’s deputy chief engineer.
Read more at: Graton may be next stop for Occidental wastewater | The Press Democrat

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sustainable Living, WaterTags , , , ,

River residents castigate county over Occidental sewage trucking

Frank Robertson, SONOMA WEST TIMES & NEWS

Public comment on the project’s environmental document, called the Initial Study and Negative Declaration, will be accepted through this Friday, Feb. 24, said Sonoma County Water Agency spokeswoman Ann DuBay. After the deadline, water agency staffers will look at the comments and determine whether the environmental review has been adequate or needs more work. “It could take a few months” before the environmental review is complete, said DuBay.

A full house of concerned river residents admonished the Sonoma County Water Agency last week over plans to truck the town of Occidental’s sewage to Guerneville for treatment and disposal.Her neighborhood is “prepared to do anything necessary to stop this absurd idea,” said Guerneville resident Susan Packer, who owns vacation rental property adjacent to the transfer site.
With Occidental’s sewage set to be trucked daily to a pumping station on Riverside Drive, where ongoing problems include odors and recent collection system overflows during Russian River flooding, “you certainly can’t handle any increase,” in sewage coming into the pump station, said Packer.Neighbors organized as the West Guernewood Action Group agree the transfer project is “incompatible and ill-considered” and are talking to an attorney, Noreen Evans, to represent them in opposition to the project, said Packer.
The united crowd of more than 100 people packed into the Monte Rio Community Center last week had little good to say about the project that would help the town of Occidental meet a state-imposed deadline to bring its sewage disposal methods up to code and avoid fines that could hit $10,000 per day. Occidental’s compliance deadline is Jan 1., 2018, said Sonoma County Water Agency Deputy Chief Engineer Cordel Stillman.
“We know there are some issues” with trucking the town’s sewage to Guernewood Park, where it would then be piped under the Russian River to the Russian River Sanitation District’s sewage treatment plant on Neeley Road, said Stillman at last week’s public hearing hosted by the water agency. The trucking project was hammered out during talks in Occidental last year when Occidental residents rejected a water recycling plan there because of the prohibitive cost.
Trucking the sewage to Guerneville was seen as a stopgap measure that would give Occidental ”breathing room” until a more permanent solution is found, said Stillman.
The meeting in the Monte Rio Community Center was the first real public forum for river residents to weigh in on the transfer plan that was hatched last year as a way to solve Occidental’s inability to find an affordable sewage disposal plan so that the town’s wastewater does not pollute Dutch Bill Creek.
Read more at: River rats castigate county over Occidental sewage trucking | News | sonomawest.com

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sustainable Living, WaterTags , , ,

Guerneville: ‘no thanks’ to Occidental sewage

Frank Robertson, SONOMA WEST TIMES
Guernewood Park residents weren’t exactly crying ‘Oh, thank-you’ this week to a Christmas gift of raw sewage from their Occidental neighbors.
“Totally unacceptable,” said Susan Packer, a Guernewood Park vacation homeowner whose property is on Riverside Drive adjacent to where the County of Sonoma wants to deliver Occidental’s sewage.“
This is a residential neighborhood,” said Packer, writing on the Nextdoor Guernewood Park email site where alarmed neighbors are now talking about the plan, announced two days before Christmas, to truck Occidental’s sewage to Guerneville for treatment and disposal. “We should not be the repository of Occidental’s problems,” said Packer.
The Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) sent notices of the project to Guerneville neighbors two weeks ago describing the project and opening a public review window that closes in two more weeks, at 5 p.m. on Jan. 23. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is expected to give final approval after a public hearing scheduled for March 21.
Some Guernewood Park neighbors say that’s too fast and the rush to bring Occidental’s sewage to Guerneville seems a little hurried considering that Occidental residents have been arguing for more than 20 years about how to dispose of their sewage. One thing Occidental ratepayers agree on is that it’s too expensive to keep the sewage in Occidental when it can be trucked to Guerneville where the town treatment plant operates at about half capacity.
But the abrupt notification and brief public review window are problematic, said Guernewood Park resident Richard Skaff.
“Things have been happening with no public discussion,” said Skaff, who asked newly elected Fifth District supervisor Lynda Hopkins this week to hold a community meeting in Guerneville so that “local residents could hear about the plan and provide you with their thoughts and concerns,” said Skaff, in an email to Hopkins this week.
The Occidental Sanitation District would transport about 15,000 gallons of raw sewage per day to a Russian River Sanitation District lift station sandwiched between Highway 116 and Riverside Drive in Guernewood Park. From there the sewage would be mixed with Guerneville’s sewage and pumped to the River District treatment plant on Neeley Road in Vacation Beach.
The Guerneville Transport Compliance Project would enable Occidental to stop draining its treated wastewater into Dutch Bill Creek in the winter.
Sonoma County Water Agency spokeswoman Ann DuBay said anyone with questions about the Occidental project should call her for information and guidance on the environmental issues and approval process. Her number is 524-8578.The public review period ends Jan. 23 at 5 p.m. Comments should be submitted to Jeff Church, 404 Aviation Blvd, Santa Rosa, CA 95403 or to jchurch@scwa.ca.gov.
Source: Guerneville: ‘no thanks’ to Occidental sewage – Sonoma West Times and News: News