It has been six years to the day since an incident that city
officials blamed on a gopher hole caused a levy to breach at
Hollister’s aging water treatment plant
– sending 15 million gallons of raw sewage down the San Benito
River bed.
It has been six years to the day since an incident that city officials blamed on a gopher hole caused a levy to breach at Hollister’s aging water treatment plant – sending 15 million gallons of raw sewage down the San Benito River bed.
Six years later, on the back end of an economy-crippling building moratorium imposed by a state water board after the spill, city leaders say this time of stagnant growth should end relatively soon with the completion of a new, $120 million treatment plant.
City Manager Clint Quilter told the Free Lance this week he intends to present Hollister’s progress to that same Central Coast Regional Quality Control Board this summer in hopes of getting the moratorium lifted early – or at least receiving permission to issue building permits to get construction crews working.
Hollister Engineering Manager Steve Wittry has been overseeing the water treatment plant project since its inception.
He noted how the main facet of the first – and most time-consuming – phase should be done by the end of May, when city officials expect the plant can start treating water.
The final two phases, which Wittry said will be done this December, are much shorter and less intensive and involve building storage ponds for the sewage and a reclaimed water distribution system.
“Once it can treat water it’s essentially done as far as the state should be concerned,” he said. “We’re substantially ahead of schedule, and below budget. I don’t see any reason why the water board wouldn’t be satisfied.”
California State Water Board Public Information Officer Dave Clegern, however, was less enthusiastic about the city’s progress. He said despite Quilter’s plan to show improvement, the “bottom line” is that the treatment plant is not completed and, therefore, the moratorium will remain in effect. Clegern said he would believe in the progress when he sees the results.
“When the leak happened, it was about as big of a wake-up-call as a community can get,” he said. “You had people with sewage backing into their homes and dams breaking into retention ponds. These are very serious problems.
“All we know is the City of Hollister has missed several deadlines in building the treatment plant and so far there is nothing we can see that would make us consider changing our position.”
The most notable deadline the city failed to meet was completing the treatment plant by October 2005. When the spill occurred in 2002, three years was thought be ample time to get the plant built and the city back in business.
That’s when Hollister went through the massive growth spurt that – state water officials will argue, contrary to the city’s gopher theory – led to the sewer spill. Population nearly doubled, the economy was growing and there was no shortage of revenue filtering into the city’s coffers. But by 2002, warnings about Hollister’s overworked and underfunded infrastructure began to surface and people started to consider slowing the city’s expansion. But when the retention wall of a sewage storage pond finally broke, sending millions of gallons of pollutants downstream, it was too late. The state slapped a $1.2 million fine on the city and stopped all building until a new treatment plant was constructed.
Six years later, Hollister Development Services Director Bill Avera said the city has done more than enough to satisfy the board and that he “cannot see anything going wrong at this point that it (the moratorium) would not be lifted by the end of year.”
“If the actions Hollister has done over the last few years don’t convince the water board, I don’t know what else can be done,” Avera said. “I’m not sure what other hoops they want us to go through.
“The treatment plant is almost done. Seasonal storage ponds are nearing completion. The reclaimed water aspect is getting online as well. We’ve really done everything they’ve asked.”
Since 2002, the building moratorium has sent ripples down every facet of Hollister’s economy. Parks depend on housing impact fees, which are billed onto development of new homes. Residents’ sewer bills have nearly tripled as the city tries to pay for the plant. Some investors have lost millions when they spent money on projects that were never completed.
Local Realtor and longtime Hollister resident Marilyn Ferreira said the moratorium has “paralyzed” the city and that the punishment from the water board was “absolutely not appropriate.”
“Every person, every walk of life in Hollister has been affected by the moratorium,” she said. “Lifting it would help our economy tremendously.”
