Tag Archives: Butte County septage ponds

Cost of pumping your septic tank will roughly double under new county deal – city of Chico refuses our septage while laying plans to run a sewer pipe from Paradise

19 Apr

Well, I found out why the county treated my questions about their new septage deal  like poison ivy – they’re about to double the cost of pumping a septic tank in Butte County.

Butte County is taxpayer and citizen hostile. I can’t believe how they handled two simple questions I posed to our once casual and friendly county CAO, Paul Hahn – “could you give us an idea of what it will cost to pump out  tank once the septage ponds are closed and the transfer station is sending our septage to Lincoln?” and “where exactly in Lincoln?”

I also asked Hahn in conversation, why isn’t our septage going to the Chico wastewater treatment plant.

Well, you saw Hahn’s response. It was huffy –  county counsel, Bruce Alpert, was positively hostile. He lectured me about the public relations act.

“The public records act does not require a public agency to provide responses to questions…”

Wow. I wish I could ask him, how is a citizen supposed to get public information without asking a question, but he threatened to charge me next time! 

I can’t post the letter cause it was loaded in such a way that it can’t be cut and paste, but maybe I’ll take a picture of it later or load it in with my scanner. I can’t believe how nasty Alpert got over two simple pieces of public information.

This information was all discussed at public meetings by the board of supervisors, I asked Hahn if he could direct me to the conversation. I couldn’t find any reports regarding shipping our septage to the Chico wastewater treatment plant – apparently there has been no real conversation about that. Sounds like the city is just flat refusing to take our septage, while making a deal with Paradise to run a sewer pipe all the way to the river to accommodate their sewage.

The city is “concerned that the biological strength of septage waste may upset their treatment system…” Wow, so Paradise’ poop is cleaner than ours? What?

So, the county has walked away from discussions with the city of Chico and contacted a firm in Lincoln – Invirotec Facility. 

And now we know why they were so touchy about answering my questions – all this is going to double the cost of pumping your tank – the current disposal fee at Neal Road dump is 15 cents a gallon, the new deal will raise it to a minimum of 24 cents a gallon but a maximum of 32 cents a gallon. The cost of a truck load will go from $211 to $450. Depending on the size of your tank, you could be paying an increase of $34/per year, and that’s if you follow staff’s recommendation and only get your tank pumped every 7 years. That’s staff’s  analysis – most experts say you should pump your tank every three to six years, depending on the size of your household. 

I believe they want to force Chicoans on sewer. I had thought that was crazy because the wastewater treatment plant was at capacity a few years ago. I found some notes from an old meeting, I’ll talk about that next time.

But I’ll say, the county of Butte is hostile to the citizens. This information request was just that – a citizen’s right to know. Hahn and Alpert treated me like a  rat in their pantry.   My supervisor, Maureen Kirk, sat through the whole conversation with her thumb up her ass. Kirk is a staff shill, she’s completely dependent on staff, makes no decisions of her own. She didn’t answer my questions because she couldn’t – it’s in one ear, vote, and out the other ear with Kirk.

Kirk should step down for 2018, give somebody else a chance to do a better job. 

 

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Your toilet just got a lot more expensive

15 Apr

Hahn, Paul <PHahn@buttecounty.net>

Yesterday, 8:10 AM
You;
Kirk, Maureen (MKirk@buttecounty.net);Schmidt, Dennis (DSchmidt@buttecounty.net)

Juanita,

 We treated your request as an official Public Information Request which means it is routed through the Department, and then County Counsel for a response.   It should be forthcoming very soon.   You request was only received early Tuesday morning and the response is forthcoming.

 In addition, this issue has been discussed with the Board in public session on numerous occasions over the last two plus years as well as special meetings with the affected industries involved and has been extensively covered in the local papers.   The issue of transporting the septage to Lincoln is actually the most consumer friendly option for cost control.  

 As soon as you receive the official response, if you still have questions, staff and I would be more than happy to sit down with you to answer any more questions.   We pride ourselves in being transparent in the County and I assure you that this issue, as well as all others, has not and will not be pushed under the radar.  

 Thank you,

 Paul Hahn
Chief Administrative Officer/CAO

Butte County Administration

25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965

phahn@buttecounty.net

T: 530.538.7631

Here’s something people need to know about me – don’t call me by my first name until I’ve introduced myself that way. These people have their titles, I get mine – “Ms. Sumner,” thank you.

My Response:

Hahn, Paul (PHahn@buttecounty.net);
Kirk, Maureen (mkirk@buttecounty.net)
 Mr. Hahn, 

I’m sorry, I thought I had asked a pretty simple question. You told me, “I am forwarding your question to Bill Mannel, the Manager of the Neil Road facility who is charge of this operation for  a response.  Bill is extremely knowledgeable and can best respond.” You didn’t say anything about FOIA or the county counsel. 

I’ve followed the agendas Mr. Hahn, and I’v tried to follow the minutes – the reports are not included, and the minutes are very incomplete. I never saw a discussion about having our septage taken to the Chico wastewater treatment plant – can you direct me to that report, which I assume would be attached to the corresponding agenda?

I’m sorry you seem to be offended. I’m just trying to remind you – you came to the Local Government Committee meeting and told Mark Orme not to make the same mistake the county had made in rolling out the trash deal – you told him to be sure to get the public engaged early in the discussion. You reported two weeks of phones ringing “off the hook” with complaints over that deal. People are still mad.  But, here you are, making the same mistake in this deal, you are not engaging the public.   I own two properties with septic tanks, I haven’t had any notice. My septic pump technician has not been noticed in any way. Do you really expect people to check the agendas every two weeks just to make sure septic tanks are still legal? The newspaper isn’t really covering it adequately. How is the public supposed to know what’s going on here? 

What have you done to engage the public in this matter? 

I’ll tell you what, you aren’t exactly encouraging me to be involved, I feel very much I am being given the runaround.  

Juanita Sumner

Excuse me for getting huffy, but I felt Hahn was getting kind of huffy. His first response to me – the one-liner I quoted above – seemed friendly and casual. Now all the sudden he’s coming back with a process that includes county counsel? Why? 

Because I complain. I’m the squeaky wheel, but around here, you don’t get the grease, you get crapped on. 

Let me tell you what’s going on here. The city of Chico and County of Butte have conspired to keep the Neal Road Landfill  running well beyond it’s capacity by requiring that all trash collected in Butte County go to Neal Road.  There have been articles in the Chico Enterprise Record – Dump  Starving For Trash!  

Here’s an old post about it:

https://chicotaxpayers.com/2013/08/12/whats-the-real-story-on-trash-zones-first-nakamura-says-its-to-get-trucks-off-the-streets-then-admits-city-needs-revenues-county-manager-says-the-dump-needs-the-revenues-solution-pick-the-tax/

News and Review quotes Hahn:

“‘The county’s main goal in this is to make sure the haulers bring their trash to the Neal Road landfill,’ Hahn said. ‘We want that measurable solid waste for a variety of reasons.’

Not only does the landfill need a certain amount of waste to be fiscally sound, but it also allows it to pursue more waste-to-energy opportunities, he said.

What the county would like to see is for the city’s haulers to agree to bring their waste to the landfill.”

 

In past Recology has trucked trash they collected here to their state-of-the-art facility near Wheatland. When they refused to bring trash to Neal Road, they lost the contract for residential service in Chico. 

Of course the Neal Road dump is in the Stone Age by comparison and is already past it’s capacity. You realize, that big plastic-covered mountain you see from the freeway used to be a canyon?  How will they fit more trash in that place? By getting rid of the only septage ponds in Butte County. How could they do that when they know most of Butte County is on septic tanks? Sounds like they’re trying to pull something, huh?

There is the City Sewer Treatment Plant out by the river west of town, why not truck it there, you ask? I couldn’t find the discussion they had at Butte County Supervisors’ chambers, but I think it went something like this. Chico Treatment Plant is already  at capacity, but they are in the same quandary as the dump – they still need more money for salaries and pensions.

The sewer fund, as told by our former mayor Mark Sorensen, was tapped out by fund transfers. Like the road fund, all the money had been trickled out by way of “appropriations” to pay salaries and benefits in other departments. They want more sewage out there, but they have the same problem as the dump – the sewer treatment plant needs a massive expansion, just to handle the new sewer hook-ups going on all over Chico right now. The city actually ran trunk  lines on private property, free of charge,  to encourage people in Chico to hook up.

Now they are making a deal to take Paradise sewage. But no room for Chico septic tanks? Looks like we’re out of luck! Looks like we’ll all end up going on sewer too! 

You think you sewer rats will get off easy? Take a look at your bill sometime, keep looking, cause sewer charges are going up, up, up!

I know – this is a racket.  You know too. Get off the pot and say something about it. 

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