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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12.16.21 Board Correspondence- FW_ Written and Oral Comments on Paradise Sewer Project From:Paulsen, Shaina To:BOS Subject:Board Correspondence- FW: Written and Oral Comments on Paradise Sewer Project Date:Thursday, December 16, 2021 5:56:56 PM Attachments:Paradise Sewer Project Written Doc.docx Paradise Sewer Project Oral Comment.m4a Please see Board Correspondence. Shaina Paulsen Associate Clerk of The Board Butte County Administration 25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965 T: 530.552.3304 | F: 530.538.7120 From: Maxwell Lennig <mblennig@mail.csuchico.edu> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2021 5:04 PM To: Clerk of the Board <clerkoftheboard@buttecounty.net> Subject: Written and Oral Comments on Paradise Sewer Project ATTENTION: This message originated from outside Butte County. Please exercise judgment before opening .. attachments, clicking on links, or replying. Hello Butte County Board of Supervisors, My name is Maxwell Lennig and I am an intern with the Environmental Advocacy program of CLIC. I have been working on a project about the Paradise Sewer Project over the course of this semester and would like to submit it as a public comment. I intended to share this during a meeting but I believe I missed the meetings where this was on the agenda. Attached you will find the written document and oral recording. Thank you, Maxwell Lennig Lennig 1 Maxwell Lennig CLIC Environmental Advocates Paradise Sewer Project The current problem is that the Town of Paradise has no centralized sewer system but instead relies on roughly 11,000 individual Septic Tank Systems (STS’s) for sewer management. Paradise also has a significantly reduced rate payer population to fund the proper management and utilization of waste management systems. This problem was caused simply by the builders of the town and residents not think to construct a central sewer system as Paradise grew and developed. There was no malice or ill intention in the design of the waste management system but eventually over time the STS’s in the town degraded and could affect groundwater stores in the future. Paradise was also almost entirely burned by the Camp Fire in 2018 which destroyed more than 18,000 structures and is the deadliest wildfire to hit the state of California. Most of the residents of the town had to evacuate and since settled elsewhere other than a handful of residents who have made the decision to rebuild their town. Future groundwater contamination issues could arise from the eventual degradation and failure of the STS’s in Paradise. The negative impacts of the high number of STS in Paradise is best represented by Withers et. al., “When STS (Septic Tank Systems) fail to work effectively, nearby groundwater and surface waters can become contaminated with polluted leachate or surface runoff, which may have direct consequences for human and environmental health. Such impacts may include NO3 enrichment of aquifers (Katz et al. 2011), fecal contamination of water supplies (Ahmed et al. 2005), disease outbreaks (Borchardt et al. 2003), antibiotic resistance in aquatic microorganisms (Graves et al. 2002), eutrophication of surface waters (Mallin and McIver 2012), loss of biodiversity (Short and Burdick 1996), and a decline in the ecosystem services provided by aquatic resources (Palmer-Felgate et al. 2010).” Paradise saw a population increase of 75.8% in the 1970s and of 55.2% in the 1980s, assuming that most of the septic tank systems were built in this time period to match the pace of development in the area, this puts most of the septic tank systems in the city at roughly 40-50 years old. Most estimates of septic tank lifespans put replacement at anywhere between 15 and 40 years, depending on the number of people using the tank, level of maintenance and care that is conducted on the system, and other environmental factors. Existing law, until January 1, 2025, authorizes local agencies, as defined, to use the design-build procurement process for specified public works with prescribed cost thresholds. Existing law requires specified information submitted by a design-build entity in the design-build procurement process to be certified under penalty of perjury. Lennig 2 Existing law requires, pursuant to the Local Agency Public Construction Act (LAPC Act), local officials to invite bids for construction projects and then award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder under the traditional design-bid-build project delivery system. Existing law works by restricting what infrastructure plans are built using the Design- Build process. As this process is still relatively new and developing there are still restrictions on where and what it can be used for in order to ensure that for large and critical infrastructure projects still adhere to the same high quality standards required for these larger projects. This fails however in the case of Paradise. Paradise suffered massive structure loss during the 2018 Camp Fire which destroyed roughly 95% of the structures in the town and caused a majority of the tax payer base to leave the town. This led to a huge decrease in the amount of funding available to the city through charging its customers. With the town unable to charge it’s customer and raise funding that way it has been forced to rely on a state budget allocation of $15 million The first year’s disbursement was contingent on PID agreeing to participate in a feasibility study to examine the possibility of consolidating PID’s operations with one or more neighboring water districts. The second year’s disbursement was contingent upon PID’s continued participation in the study, which was to be arranged by the State Water Resources Control Board and funded by the state. Existing law fails as a Design-Build contract would allow the city to quickly rebuild and attempt to draw tax payers back yet is unable to do so because of the current provisions. This bill would authorize the Paradise Irrigation District to use the design-build contracting process to award a contract for a water conveyance pipeline from the Town of Paradise to the City of Chico. The bill would authorize the Town of Paradise to use the design- build contracting process to provide for the provision of sewer treatment to the Town of Paradise, including for infrastructure connecting the Town of Paradise to an existing treatment facility. By expanding design-build authority to include additional projects, the bill would expand the scope of the crime of perjury, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. A.B. 36 has support from the City of Chico, the Paradise Irrigation District, the State Building and Construction Trades Council, the Town of Paradise, the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, the County of Butte, the Design Build Institute of America Western Pacific Chapter, the District Council 16 Painters and Allied Trades, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Western States Section, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the Cal-Nevada Conference. There is currently no opposition on the record by any party. Relative to other sewer projects this is estimated to be right on par what a project of this size would cost. The Los Osos sewer project in San Luis Obispo County was estimated to cost Lennig 3 $173 million to construct, with some reports demonstrating that while the price increased slightly it was able to stay within budget. In comparison the much more population intense area of the East Bay Municipal Utility District has budgeted roughly $800 million of capital improvements for 2022-2023 such as to replace aging pipelines, improve water treatment plants to improve resiliency and address climate change impacts, replace large water transmission pipes, and to make improvements to the Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Oakland and sewer interceptors and pump stations. Paradise’s $184 million proposed budget therefore is average when it comes to the cost of this project compare to others in its class. The current proposed cost of building for the Town of Paradise Sewer Project is $184 million, with $2 million set aside for the EIR, $30 million for design and right-of-way, and $152 million for the total construction. The town will pursue funding options froma few potential sources including; A state appropriation (working in conjunction with the City and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board), the U.S. Department of Agriculture using Rural Development funds, the California Department of Housing and Community Development using Community Development Block Grants – Disaster Relief (CDBG-DR), and from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA). Landowners of parcels outside the service area would not participate in a vote for formation of the special district nor bear any financial responsibility for the costs of the project. The Town of Paradise, co-sponsor of this measure, writes, “AB 36 would authorize design-build for a water conveyance pipeline from Paradise to Chico. The Paradise Irrigation District (PID) is a special district which provides drinking water service to the town of Paradise. The district was severely impacted by the 2018 Camp Fire, losing most of its ratepayer base. While the State has provided some backfill funding, this funding is temporary and the district must diversify its revenue streams to remain viable. PID’s reservoirs and treatment plant were largely undamaged by the Camp Fire, and expanding distribution pipelines would allow treated water to be delivered to other areas within Butte County that are currently groundwater dependent. CLIC EA can help by providing more information to the public on the benefits and possible drawbacks on AB 36 and ensuring that the general public is adequately informed of what exactly this bill means for the reconstruction of Paradise. There are certain civil rights and liberties that we enjoy living in an advanced and developed country. The United Nations declared that "The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights". By following through with the reconstruction of Paradise’s water infrastructure it would guarantee that the residents of the town have access to clean, safe water and that wastewater can be properly removed and treated. Lennig 4 We can move forward by showing our support for the passage of Assembly Bill 36, which would allow for the enhanced speed of reconstruction for some of the core infrastructure of Paradise. Citizens can become heavily engaged in their community through advocacy. When there is an issue afflicting your community and you can take the time and effort to delve deep into it, talking to the people it affects or even being personally affected by it yourself, becoming engrossed in the local attitudes and feelings of those around you towards one central issue. These are some of the things that allow you to truly get a look into how the people around you live and feel and their perspectives on life. Each person in a community has a different story as to how they got their and when you advocate for an issue that demands community involvement it lets you into at least one small part of people's lives that you wouldn’t have seen before. You are more likely to care about something that you dedicate your time to, and if you dedicate your time to bettering the community you live in, it will give you a unique connection born only from the moments of your life and the effort of your work that you have given and that only you are able to feel. Lennig 5 References A.B. 36, 2021-2022 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2020). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB36 Ahmed, W., Neller, R., & Katouli, M. (2005). Evidence of septic system failure determined by a bacterial biochemical fingerprinting method. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 98(4), 910-920. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2672.2004.02522.x Apodaca, T. (2021). New law may speed up plans to connect paradise to Chico's sewer system. KHSL News. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/news/New-law-may-speed-up-plans-to- connect-Paradise-to-Chicos-sewer-system-575525081.html. Borchardt, M. A., Chyou, P., Devries, E. O., & Belongia, E. A. (2003). Septic system density and infectious diarrhea in a defined population of children. Environmental Health Perspectives, 111(5), 742-748. doi:10.1289/ehp.5914 Christopher L. Garcia, Maintaining the California Environmental Quality Act's Informational Goals Under the Use of Design-Build, 7 Golden Gate U. Envtl. L.J. 235 (2014). https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/gguelj/vol7/iss2/7 Curtis, C. (2021). Town of Paradise Launches Environmental Review for Paradise Sewer Project. Town of Paradise Sewer Project. https://paradisesewer.com/wp- content/uploads/2021/04/Paradise-NOP-News-Release.pdf. Graves, A. K., Hagedorn, C., Teetor, A., Mahal, M., Booth, A. M.,& Reneau, R. B. (2002). Antibiotic Resistance Profiles to Determine Sources of Fecal Contamination in a Rural Virginia Watershed. Journal of Environmental Quality, 31(4), 1300-1308. doi:10.2134/jeq2002.1300 Katz, B. G., Eberts, S. M., & Kauffman, L. J. (2011). Using Cl/Br ratios and other indicators to assess potential impacts on groundwater quality from septic systems: A review and examples from principal aquifers in the United States. Journal of Hydrology, 397(3-4), 151-166. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.11.017 Knopman, D., Wachs, M., Miller, B., Davis, S., & Pfrommer, K. (2018). Renewing America’s Infrastructure: An Agenda for Federal Transportation and Water Policy. Public Works Management & Policy, 23(4), 310-323. doi:10.1177/1087724x18789703 Mallin, M. A., & Mciver, M. R. (2012). Pollutant impacts to Cape Hatteras National Seashore from urban runoff and septic leachate. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 64(7), 1356-1366. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.04. Lennig 6 New budget and rates adopted for FY2022 & FY2023. East Bay Municipal Utility District. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2021, from https://www.ebmud.com/customers/billing- questions/budget-and-rates/. Palmer-Felgate, E. J., Mortimer, R. J., Krom, M. D., & Jarvie, H. P. (2010). Impact of Point- Source Pollution on Phosphorus and Nitrogen Cycling in Stream-Bed Sediments. Environmental Science & Technology, 44(3), 908-914. doi:10.1021/es902706r Project materials. Town of Paradise Sewer Project. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2021, from https://paradisesewer.com/project-materials/. Sewer Regionalization Project Advisory Committee to hold first public meeting. (2021). Town of Paradise Sewer Project. https://paradisesewer.com/wp- content/uploads/2021/04/SRPAC-First-Meeting_News-Release-3.5.21.pdf. Short, F. T., & Burdick, D. M. (1996). Quantifying Eelgrass Habitat Loss in Relation to Housing Development and Nitrogen Loading in Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts. Estuaries, 19(3), 730. doi:10.2307/1352532 Sneed, D. (2013, June 13). Despite rising costs, Los Osos sewer project is still within budget. The Tribune. Retrieved October 13, 2021, from https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article39447105.html. Sullivan, J., Asmar, M. E., Chalhoub, J., & Obeid, H. (2017). Two Decades of Performance Comparisons for Design-Build, Construction Manager at Risk, and Design-Bid-Build: Quantitative Analysis of the State of Knowledge on Project Cost, Schedule, and Quality. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,143(6), 04017009. doi:10.1061/(asce)co.1943-7862.0001282 Withers, Paul Ja, et al. “Do Septic Tank Systems Pose a Hidden Threat to Water Quality?” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, vol. 12, no. 2, 2014, pp. 123–130., doi:10.1890/130131. https://paradisesewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CLEAN-PDF-Paradise-Sewer-Project- Public-Scoping-Summary-Report-with-Attachments_20210721.pdf (FIX) https://paradisesewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Paradise-Sewer-Project-Report-Staff- Report-dated-062117.pdf (FIX)