Correcting Bever's Effluent On Handling Effluent

BEVER'S BLATHER
Last week former Costa Mesa Mayor Eric Bever published a commentary in the Daily Pilot, HERE, that was very critical of the recently-announced plan in Bradley Zint's Daily Pilot articles, HERE, and HERE,  to replace the aging and pump-driven sewer system on part of Costa Mesa's Westside, in a segment of Talbert Regional Park and a little chunk of Newport Beach with a gravity-flow system.

CARROLL'S RESPONSE
In his critical mini-tome Bever got it wrong in many ways, which didn't really surprise some of us longtime Bever watchers, so we were not surprised when Scott Carroll,  General Manager of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District (CMSD) - one of the three signatories on the plan, along with the City of Newport Beach and the Orange County Sanitary District (OCSD) - produced a rebuttal.  That commentary appears online in the Daily Pilot, HERE, and will likely appear in print on Sunday.  Unfortunately, apparently space constraints caused a very heavy hand at the editing desk, because the punch line of Carroll's piece was omitted. NOTE: Friday morning the missing segment has been added to the Daily Pilot version and will appear in print Sunday, too.   You can read the agreement approved by the CMSD Board on March 26th HERE.  And, you can read the more than 300 pages of the Environmental Impact Report, from which this image showing the project was lifted, HERE.

(click on image for easier reading)

HERE'S THE FULL VERSION
So, in the interest of continuity and clarity - but certainly not brevity - I have reproduced the entire text of Carroll's submission to the Daily Pilot.  I could have just provided the missing piece, but this way you can read straight through it.  Basically, the last half of the piece - the reason WHY this long-considered project is necessary, beginning with the paragraph that starts, "Finally..." - was not included in the Daily Pilot.  Here is Carroll's piece verbatim:

Commentary: Getting the facts right about Canyon Drive pipeline
By Scott Carroll
April 7, 2015

I want to take this opportunity to clear up the misstated facts made by Eric Bever’s commentary titled, “Railroaded over the Canyon Drive pipeline action” dated April 6, 2015.  On March 26, 2015 the Board of Directors approved a Cooperative Agreement, which is a three party agreement between the Costa Mesa Sanitary District (District), Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD) and the City of Newport Beach that describes each agency’s role in the project.  The District did not award contracts for engineering designs and/or construction because the cooperative agreement has not been approved by all three parties, permits have not been issued by regulatory agencies and bid documents need to be prepared.  The District has every intention of completing its fiduciary responsibility to our ratepayers by soliciting bids from qualified contractors, evaluating bids received and then approving a contract to the responsible low bidder. 

In regards to Mr. Bever’s transparency claim, the District has always discussed this project in an open public forum since 2007.  In addition to March 26, the District has discussed this project on February 10, 2015, July 22, 2014 and July 31, 2013 and by subscribing to the District’s E-mail subscription residents will always be made aware of this project.  Also, Mr. Bever believes the District did not listen to concerned residents, but the truth is the District did meet several times with concerned residents regarding Talbert Regional Park and the District even considered adopting the residents preferred alternative identified in the Environmental Impact Report, Victoria Street Gravity Alternative, but it was determined that the impacts and disruption to Victoria Street would be too great.  However, the District did agree to reduce the project scope to protect Talbert Park and save nearly $1 million.

The District has always acknowledged that residents on or near Canyon Drive will be temporarily disrupted during construction, but the disruption will be no way near the two year timeframe that was once reported in the newspaper.    Disruption on Canyon Drive could be as long as three weeks in any one location, which is why the District is going to schedule open meetings with residents.  The District wants to show residents the proposed designs, traffic plan, mitigation measures including dust control, noise abatement and other factors, but to accomplish this we need a set of detailed plans and those plans are not prepared yet because the District still has to solicit bids and award a contract for engineering design.

Finally, I want to reiterate why the Board of Directors believes this project is very important to Costa Mesa. This project, when complete, will decommission force main pipes and seven lift stations (five stations belong to the District).  Force main pipes and lift stations are the number one concern in the wastewater industry because if the pipe fails wastewater would spray like a geyser and contaminate anything it comes in contact with.   Lift stations require an enormous amount of energy to push the wastewater.  When lift stations fail due to power outages the wastewater will rise in the station and overflow into storm drains and contaminate beaches and waterways.

This project will eliminate the risk to the public’s health and the environment, which is the District’s overall mission, “Protecting our community’s health and the environment by providing solid waste and sewer collection services.”  If this project does not proceed, the District will have to reconstruct all the force mains, lift stations, and install gravity sewers on Wilson Street and Hamilton Street, all of which is more expensive and would lead to substantially more disruption than the decommission option.  The same holds true for OCSD, if they do not construct their portion of the decommissioned network, they will have to upsize their existing trunk sewer in Fairview Road, which would also lead to far more disruption than constructing their portion of the abandonment sewers.

Yes, Mr. Bever is correct that this project will be a temporary disruption in some neighborhoods but we believe maintaining the health and safety of the public and the environment significantly outweighs a temporary disruption.   The District will do everything within our means to ensure the public’s quality of life is not disrupted during construction and we will make sure the public is well informed about the construction timeline and scope of work. 

SCOTT CARROLL is General Manager of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District

STILL A LONG WAY TO GO
I spoke with Carroll about this issue.  He advised me that we are a long way from this project commencing.  The two other signatories must still go through their approval process.  All the engineering and design work is still pending.  Several public outreach meetings will be held, probably not until next year, since this project is not anticipated to begin until late in 2016 or early 2017.

INCONVENIENCE AND IMPROVEMENT
He confirmed that some residents on Canyon Drive will be inconvenienced for short times as the new pipe is installed.  He also confirmed that the OCSD will be doing the work in Talbert Park, and will be laying the pipe there beneath the existing service road.  And, he told me that each of the seven (7) pump stations will be removed once the new gravity-flow infrastructure is in place and operating, although one article indicates that one of the pumping stations will remain.  The final engineering details have not been completed.

SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA
Based on what I know at this time - the actual facts of the issue presented by Carroll and a cursory pass through the EIR - this complex and expensive project, estimated at over $23 million, of which the CMSD segment will cost around $7 million, certainly seems to be a proactive solution to the problem of expensive and aging pipes and pumps in that part of our city and another example of the CMSD Board and management getting out ahead of a problem.