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Edited on Tue May-03-05 11:30 AM by EVDebs
Today's (May 3, 2005 Santa Rosa, CA) Press Democrat story "New rules may be costly for county's septic system owners" by Carol Benfell, shows Sonoma County Supervisors Mike Reilly saying that new statewide SWRCB septic tank regulations "...have the potential to force people from their homes".
The SWRCB is going around statewide and claiming 'bacterial health hazard' in rivers, like Sonoma County's Russian River and its tributary creeks, and labelling them as human sourced pollution. This then enables them to force big pipe sewer projects-- which are now required to be paid for 100% by the affected communities, most of whom in my area can't afford an additional $100 per month sewer bill.
The trouble is SWRCB just goes around taking the word of EIRs that the county has had done in the past that simply state "leaking septic tanks are causing the pollution" and the local media regurgitate that as 'fact'.
DNA testing of e. coli can now be done, as in the article "Sewered Again" by the Pt. Reyes Light shows
www.ptreyeslight.com/columns/pridgen/pridgen09_18_03.html in the Tomales Bay example where animal e. coli was shown as the source of pollution...and a sewer project being railroaded was derailed by DNA testing which should be mandatory:
"EPA headquarters officials expressed surprise that "any engineer would proceed with a design to reduce e coli in an area with a high wildlife population without DNA testing, especially considering the case studies cited in their Bacterial Source Tracking document. Such testing has potentially saved millions of dollars while insuring that e coli problems are actually corrected."
Before forcing people from their homes, the State Water Resources Control Board SWRCB should be forced to identify the actual sources of pollution by DNA testing ! This would save unincorporated California homeowners from shelling out an estimated $10K-$30K -- around $30 BILLION DOLLARS...three times the size of Enron's $9 billion fiasco...
SWRCB needs to be reeled in FAST on this boondoggle !!!!!!!
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