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James Barrett
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Salton City Sewage “The Makings of a Meltdown” By Don Holland Now that the Imperial County Planning Development Services Department (ICPDS) has stopped issuing building permits for the Salton City area of the Salton Community Services District (SCSD) many questions are being asked about what were the circumstances that led up to the meltdown of the sewage treatment system and what can be done now to resolve the problem. This report is not being written with any intent other than to make available to the reader all the facts, figures, and details of how the sewage treatment system originated and how it has evolved over the years. If the facts seem to point in any certain direction on whom or what might be to blame for the current situation that is before us don’t blame the messenger, facts are facts and they will be presented to you here and now. From time to time this article will reference certain public documents that are instrumental in explaining this matter fully. If you are reading this on the internet simply click on the text link to view the document. If you’re not reading this online you can view them later at www.saltonseawest.com. That being said, Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s get down to the facts. POOP 101: “The Beginning of a Sewer District” In the beginning there was man and man made quite a mess. Well actually in the beginning there was government and government in its infinite wisdom knew that man would soon follow so government made rules regarding the mess that man was certain to make. When the Salton Community Services District was originally formed in 1958 under the name of Desert Shores Community Services District a form of government was set up to ensure that the residents of the district, present and future, would have adequate facilities and services to promote a safe and healthy environment. Sewage disposal and treatment was one of the responsibilities that the SCSD took on. When the original parcels of land were sub-divided the SCSD and the developers entered into a contract that said that the SCSD would provide sewer disposal and treatment services for a fee. The fees collected from all of the sub-divided lots were deposited into one single district account known as the “Sewer Construction Fund”. Per the contract the fund was to be used “solely for the construction and installation of sewage treatment, disposal and transmission facilities within the district...”. Over the years this fund has accrued over $7,000,000 in principle and interest. In the early 90’s in a move to finance the operations of the district office, the board of directors increased the percent that it had been skimming off of the sewer construction fund to 33-1/3 % of the accrued interest that the fund was earning. This 33-1/3% was the maximum percentage allowed by law. There was no formula or study done to see if the amount skimmed was greater than the actual costs of office overhead created by the sewer construction department. In fact the original contract with the sub-dividers doesn’t allow any sewer construction funds to be used on anything other than sewer construction and installation of sewage treatment, disposal and transmission facilities. If the 33-1/3% exceeded the office overhead costs than a breach of contract would have occurred. As a side caveat, in early 2005 the board of directors voted in a “sewer capacity fee” of $1,000 on all new development for the purposes of expanding sewer capacity, even though the original sub-dividers already paid for that capacity way back in the early 60’s. Just like with the improperly collected Fire Department / Street Lighting Impact Fee, the board of directors never obtained a legal opinion on if a sewer capacity fee could be charged, especially when the service was already paid for way back then. POOP 102: “The Makings of a Meltdown” At the formation of the district it was clichés like “build it and they will come” to “we’ll build a bridge to the 21st century” however the current SCSD Sewer System is now best described with “ain’t got a pot to piss in” and “shit rolls downhill”. And when all the facts come out you’ll see that “something is rotten in Denmark” but you already know that if you ever studied the behavior of the district… you know….”same shit different day”. In the beginning of Salton City, sewer lines were installed to various scattered tracts of the sub-divided areas of the district on an as-needed basis. The sewage was piped to one relatively small evaporation pond at the south end of the district about a mile west of the current ponds. As construction of homes increased the district built a set of evaporation / percolation ponds on the current 40 acre site that had a capacity of 200,000 gallons a day. In the late 70’s construction in Salton City all but came to a standstill so there was not much of an immediate need for many more tracts to be sewered-out, so not many more were piped. Meanwhile the existing sewer construction fund kept accruing thousands and thousands of dollars of interest and the district kept skimming their percentage “for office overhead”. With the arrival of the real estate developers and speculators in early 2003 construction skyrocketed and as such more tracts required sewering, and treatment capacity fastly approached maximum capacity, however nothing was done about increasing sewer capacity until late 2004 when the districts General Manager and the board of directors spent almost a year entertaining the idea of using “state of the art” “unproven” “prototype” technology in the form of a digester plant that would use bacteria to treat sewage. That plan fell through when a spill at the digester plant prototype facility back east reeked havoc in a stream. Meanwhile new construction proceeded at a fevered pace and sewer capacity soon approached 85% which triggered a legal requirement for the district to notify the Regional Water Quality Control Board of the districts plans for increasing capacity. At that time the district notified the RWQCB that they would be using a “tried and true” “proven” evaporation / percolation technology that had been around for decades. In May of 2006 at a special called meeting the current board of directors that consisted of the two newly elected directors that took office in December of 2005 ( Barrett, Rouhe) along with the carry-over directors from the 2003 elections (Butler, Palmer, Urbanoski) voted to approve proceeding with building new evaporation / percolation ponds that would initially treat 500,000 gallons a day and be easily expandable to 2,000,000 gallons which would be enough to service all of Salton City at build-out. At that meeting the board hired an engineering firm to design the new facility and interact with the RWQCB for their required approval as well as help in preparing Environmental Impact Reports (EIR’s). In early 2007 the current sewer ponds reached and exceeded maximum capacity and the district used the old original pond as an overflow pond with permission from the RWQCB. Meltdown had occurred; SCSD could no longer provide adequate sewer service to existing customers let alone to new developments that had already obtained building permits from the County of Imperial and that had already started construction. Despite the over capacity situation and the fact that there were well over 100 houses that had completed construction, were tied to the sewer system and were sitting vacant, the SCSD General Manager continued to hook up new developments to the inadequate sewer system. POOP 103: “Where Does it Go From Here?” In April of 2007, amidst concerns for the publics’ health and safety, the County of Imperial stopped issuing building permits for Salton City until such time that the County is assured by the SCSD as well as the RWQCB that sewer capacity has been sufficiently, and verifiably, increased. The current status of the situation is this: 1. Engineering plans have been designed by the SCSD’s engineering firm and submitted to the RWQCB for approval at its June 2007 meeting. 2. The County is still inspecting developments currently permitted and under construction but will not issue any Certificates of Completion until sewer capacity is increased. 3. The County is not issuing any new building permits for Salton City. 4. The County is rescinding building permits that have been issued and that construction has not yet commenced unless the contractor/builder/owner agrees to certain stipulations. (click here for those stipulations). 5. The County is considering allowing temporary septic tanks to be installed on properties that are currently permitted and have already started construction in order for them to be signed off and occupied. However a verifiable contract with a waste removal company for regular pumping would be required. The County is still researching the viability of this option and as of now this option is only in the planning stages. 6. If the RWQCB approves the design of the new sewer treatment facility in June, then SCSD has sufficient funds on hand to develop the new site with a projected completion date of October/November of 2007. POOP 104: SUMMARY In short and to put it bluntly, the SCSD “is in a world of shit”. For years the SCSD has had adequate financial resources to stay ahead of the building curve yet has failed to do so. Now the SCSD is in all probability facing many lawsuits as developers/builders/owners sue for not being provided sewer service that was paid for way back in the 60’s and the lack thereof is requiring the County of Imperial to impose a building moratorium in order to protect the publics health and safety. In order to avoid some of the financial implications of any lawsuits and to provide the contractually agreed to sewer capacity to the property owners, there appears to be certain things that the SCSD could possibly do to limit litigation loses and to serve the people. Here is a list of possible remedies: 1. The SCSD board of directors could call a special meeting to initiate the bidding process to install the pipeline and electrical service that is required for the new treatment facility. This pipeline and electrical service do not need SWQCB approval to commence, and installing them before the June SWQCB meeting would shave much valuable time off of the total construction time. 2. If the SCSD opened bidding on the facility part of the project before the June meeting with a bid closing date after that June meeting then much more valuable time can be saved. This allows any minor changes that the SWQCB may make to be addressed in an addendum to the bid before the bid closing date. 3. The SCSD could consider entering into an agreement with the County and entities currently seeking building permits that would have SCSD installing and servicing the temporary septic tanks that were discussed earlier. This would be a cost to the districts Sewer Construction Fund, but in effect it would increase sewer capacity, and after all, that is what the fund was originally created for. It would probably be cheaper than a lot of lawsuits. 4. The SCSD could use the Sewer Construction Departments new Sewerjet truck to pump out approximately 4000 gallons of sewage a day from the over capacity ponds in Salton City and drive it up to the Desert Shores treatment facility. They could also use the Sewer Maintenance Departments Sewerjet to dispose of an additional 4000 gallons a day provided that the Sewer Maintenance department was financially reimbursed for use of its vehicle by the Sewer Construction Department. That’s a total of 8000 gallons a day of sewage that won’t be spilled into the Arroyo Salada Wash if a breach of the now fully saturated pond walls happens to occur. If the General Manager were to stop hooking up new developments to the over capacity sewer system it would free-up four current employees that could run the 2 Sewerjet trucks between Salton City and Desert Shores. POOP: END OF LESSON |
