HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-16-2017 Item 9, SchmidtCOUNCIL MEETING: L_ I Ca - 17
ITEM NO.:
From: Richard Schmidt <
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2017 11:41:41 PM
To: E-mail Council Website
Subject: Agenda item 9 -- sewer lateral ordinance
Dear Mayor and Council,
Please see attached letter on this subject.
MAY 16 2017
SLO CITY CLERK
Re Item 9 — Sewer Lateral Replacement Ordinance
Dear Mayor and Council Members,
Please don't pass this ordinance. It is a travesty that if passed
• will drain huge sums from our discretionary economy and from city sales tax revenues,
• will saddle nearly every property owner with a bill for something like $8,250,
• will further raise the high cost of owning or renting a home, and
• will not in any way solve the problem being used as an excuse for its enactment.
Quite simply, this ordinance is yet another example of staff's setting up the council to
engage in over -reach, and such actions come with a heavy price in both good will and
trust towards the city and the council.
If this passes I predict it will become your council's equivalent of the Rental Housing
Ordinance fiasco. At the moment the deficient news media have failed to inform the
public about it, but once people figure it out, be prepared for serious blowback.
So, what are the problems with this ordinance?
1. Backstory. The sewage plant overflows in big rain events. So do some sewers within
town. Because these responses occur very rapidly during or lust after heavy rainfall, it is
clear they are caused by massive illegal or improperly directed inflow of storm water
into the sanitary sewer system. Rather than solve that obvious problem, however, staff
has invented essentially a non -problem to go after, alleged infiltration of storm water
via private sewer laterals (the lines that connect buildings to city sewer mains). They
have so confounded things I suspect council members may be confused that inflow
(massive improper diversion of flow) and infiltration (gradual seepage) are two entirely
different unrelated phenomena.
Staff has presented not a shred of credible data to show infiltration is responsible
for the massive sewage overflows.
2. Diversion of Attention from the Big Cause of Sewage Overflows. Instead of
solving the big and obvious problem, inflow, this ordinance would have you go after a
piddling, yet very costly -to -fix, side issue, alleged infiltration into private lines. I believe
this is being proposed because replacing private sewer lines is a cost borne entirely by
others than the city, plus the city's exorbitant permit fees produce a revenue flow for the
city.
So from the city's standpoint, this no -fix -it side venture is a win-win — it diverts attention
from the real issue — inflow combined in some areas with city malfeasance in the
design, management, and maintenance of its under capacity sewer mains -- while
costing the city nothing and producing revenue. (Especially galling is the additional fact
the city's mains in our part of town are admittedly deficient in capacity to carry the
amount of sewage they carry, yet they're not dealing with that issue, pretending all us
scofflaw property owners are the problem.)
3. Infiltration Couldn't Possibly Be Causing the Documented Sewage Overflows.
As mentioned above, the overflows come very quickly during or just after heavy
rainfalls, which is the hallmark of massive inflow, not of infiltration.
Consider how infiltration would have to take place. Sewer laterals are deep in the soil,
let's say 4 feet for sake of argument. It rains hard. For sewer infiltration to take place,
rain water would have to first infiltrate the soil to a depth of 4 feet. How long would that
take? Our dominant soils are heavy clay. According to the USDA's soil scientists, for
rainwater to infiltrate 4 feet in such soil would take 15 days on level ground, 67 days on
a 16% slope! It is really hard to understand how the volume of infiltration alleged to be a
problem could take place into a properly buried sewer lateral.
The city does have graphics (in your previous staff report) showing what days the
sewage plant was overloaded, and, funny thing, they all correspond in the very short
term to days of heavy rainfall, so clearly immediate inflow, not delayed infiltration, is the
cause.
The sewage overflows on my street occur during or within an hour of heavy rainfalls —
again, clearly the problem is inflow, not infiltration.
If infiltration were causing sewage plant overload problems, the overload would not only
be delayed, it would be continuous over a prolonged period — days, weeks, months
while the soil around laterals remains saturated. The sewage plant overloads — the
alleged reason for this lateral replacement ordinance — are spikes that rise and quickly
fall back to normal. They are entirely different in temporal pattern from what one would
find if infiltration were their cause.
4. The Ordinance is a Blunt Instrument That Will Impact Virtually Every
Residential and Commercial Property In the City. The ordinance requires the costly
and physically disruptive replacement of sewer laterals without requiring any evidence
whatsoever a lateral is causing a problem due to infiltration.
I repeat: The ordinance has no nexus to the problem it allegedly solves.
That is because instead of positively identifying significant infiltration in a lateral as the
criterion for replacement it instead lists an extensive number of "defects" which mandate
replacement. To wit:
"Private sewer laterals shall be free of displaced joints, breaks, offsets, structural
defects, damage, open joints, missing portions of pipe, root intrusion, cracks, leaks,
sediment deposits or any other similar conditions, defects or obstructions likely to
cause or contribute to blockage of the private sewer lateral or the public sewer."
In other words, private laterals have to be perfect. How many sewer laterals are
perfect? How many don't have any tree roots? Nor do such things indicate that
infiltration is taking place. This is an inappropriate set of criteria on which to base the
requirement for replacement to the tune of $8,250 per property.
Note also the totally irrelevant requirement lines must be free of "defects or obstructions
likely to cause or contribute to blockage of the private sewer lateral." This has absolutely
NOTHING to do with infiltration. And besides, what business is it of the city's?
The ordinance is over -reach without nexus to the problem whose solution it is alleged to
be.
5. The Ordinance Will Create an Economic Fiasco. $8,250 is a huge impact to
owners of homes, rentals, and small business properties. How many people barely
hanging onto housing will have that amount available for this city mandate? (Forget the
$1,000 rebate program. Last time the city tried that, contractors just raised their prices
by that amount.)
On the macro -economic scale, the impacts will be monstrous. They will take about a
Half Billion $$$ out of the local discretionary economy. Can it afford that?
The city will lose millions of $$$ just in lost Measure G tax revenues, plus its share of
the state collections.
This ordinance would have a huge impact on the economy and on city operations.
Conclusion. This is one of those cases when you need to just say NO! For the city's
good and for ours.
Thank you.
Richard Schmidt
PS. Here's a link to my somewhat more analytical letter when you first discussed this.
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