County agencies say Hollister needs environmental studies before
project begins
It is the war of the words and hinges on the definition of
”
emergency.
”
County officials say Hollister has overstepped its authority in
approving, under an emergency order, a new sewage storage pond
without environmental studies to determine the regional impact.
County agencies say Hollister needs environmental studies before project begins
It is the war of the words and hinges on the definition of “emergency.”
County officials say Hollister has overstepped its authority in approving, under an emergency order, a new sewage storage pond without environmental studies to determine the regional impact.
The pond is to store wastewater during the rainy season when the soil doesn’t percolate.
Representatives of both San Benito County and the San Benito Water District have been meeting in executive session to ponder a legal response. They say that being under a state-imposed deadline and the fear of heavy rain, are not “emergencies” under California Environmental Quality Act guidelines. As the law is written, an emergency is an occurrence involving imminent danger to health or property as a result of fire, flood or earthquake, the boards maintain.
The city approved construction of the storage pond to hold excess wastewater during the rainy season. The Regional Water Quality Control Board has ordered the city to make sewage plant improvements or start paying the first of a potential $1.2 million in total fines assessed for the 15-million-gallon May spill.
The two agencies wrote a letter to City Attorney Elaine Cass this week expressing concerns that the city had overstepped its authority and warning that the county would be filing litigation to challenge the city’s action.
“We’re shooting one across their bow to get their attention,” said Supervisor Richard Scagliotti.
Cass said she was shocked when she received the county’s letter Tuesday afternoon.
“The county is setting itself up as the CEQA police,” she said. “We have a window right now to put these ponds in, which will provide an additional level of safety to prevent another sewage breech. They didn’t even give us the courtesy of a phone call, and at the 11th hour, they send us a letter. I have to wonder, is there any substance here? The construction has been approved by the state.”
City Manager George Lewis also expressed disappointment over the county’s latest action, calling litigation between the two agencies a waste of taxpayer’s money when nothing can be gained.
“I don’t understand,” said Lewis. “They threaten litigation and I don’t understand why they would stop a project that would protect the environment. The ponds need to be in before El Niño hits. We consider this to be an emergency. We have limited (sewage) capacity.”
Lewis added that the storage ponds were given a last-minute go-ahead by the regional board after a pilot plant for removing suspended solids and algae failed to do the job in September. Engineers were hoping to remove 90 percent of the scum, but the equipment only took out less than 50 percent, so the city sent it back to its manufacturer.
In an October memo to the county, the city maintains the holding pond is exempt from CEQA study because it’s designed to prevent an emergency.
“The project is exempt because it is an action to prevent or mitigate an emergency,” said the memo, signed by city planning manager Bill Card. “The ponds are only for emergency use in the event of an overage of secondary treated effluent at the domestic plant.”
The seasonal storage ponds would have a combined capacity of 24.5 million gallons and displace 81,000 cubic yards of soil at the plant near Highways 156 and San Juan-Hollister Road. County officials maintain that such a big project has environmental impacts that must be addressed under state law.
Supervisors held an emergency closed session meeting Monday to discuss the city’s action. Members of the San Benito County Water District are meeting tonight. Both groups maintain that the ponds have the potential to impact the aquifer and are, essentially, the equivalent of a sewage plant expansion.
“The water district wants to know the environmental effects of this,” said Scagliotti. “It’s the law.”
CEQA requires studies of projects, especially those concerning wastewater and soil removal, to understand the potential environmental impacts on the surrounding regions.
“My understanding of an emergency is that it has to be something that’s going to happen,” said John Gregg, district manager of the San Benito County Water District.
City engineer Clint Quilter said that given the short amount of time they have to make the deadline for the project’s completion, Jan. 1, 2003, and the necessity of the ponds, the city is doing the right thing.
“We believe what they did is right,” he said. “If we have an extremely wet winter, we believe there is some health and safety issues if we don’t have additional storage capacity. In other words, we are preparing for a possible emergency.”
Quilter added that it would take a full work crew 15 days to excavate for the basins. The regional water board, he added, made its decision about the storage ponds Nov. 1.
But County Attorney Karen Forcum agreed with Gregg that a real CEQA emergency has to do with an occurrence, not a condition.
“That’s the concern,” she said. “Under public resources code, there is language that defines an emergency.”
The city’s interpretation doesn’t seem to fit the extremely narrow emergency exception, she said.
Card said the city filed its CEQA exemption forms according to law.
“There are disputes over CEQA all the time,” said Card. “As you know, the city had a pretty huge spill some months back. Had we had something like this in place it might not have happened.”
The spill occurred when a percolation pond berm abutting the San Benito River burst, sending 15 million gallons of wastewater spilling downstream. It happened as sewage plant operators were moving wastewater from one pond to another in an effort to ready the industrial ponds for the canning season.
The approval of the storage pond and the awarding of the contract to build them have frustrated county officials, who have been asking Hollister to talk to them about the process.
“It goes back to that same thing again,” said Scagliotti. “This needs to be a legal open process. That’s what CEQA was invented for. They’re just ignoring that.”
