The pond at the Don Pedro Waste Water Treatment Plant
on Ranchito Drive can be seen in the top right corner of this old photo.
How could that possibly be? – one might legitimately ask since that new sewer facility was constructed to replace the old one on the golf course that was failing and both were constructed for the exclusive benefit of the golf course complex and select homes around the golf course. As most know, Mariposa County LAFCo (Local Area Formation Commission), formed the Lake Don Pedro Community Services District under the condition that it eventually assume financial responsibility and operation for that waste water system – a system with a history fraught with various difficulties.
The reason for that second waste water system was due to the land development projects the county was permitting in the area, and continued to permit despite serious concerns which materialized during the uncontrolled development on the Mariposa County side of the Lake Don Pedro subdivision. Tuolumne County officials on the other hand apparently held a strong line against the bellicose threats of lawsuits by a late on the scene exploiting land development/mortgage corporation from the Bay Area. ANYONE questioning the many suspicious activities of that corporation were incorrectly tagged as “anti-local development” rather than the supporters of “common sense” regulations that they were.
Not surprisingly that “pro expansion corporation” from San Ramon received much behind the scene support and a “hero’s welcome” from the local real estate and land development interests who had been demanding WL11395 water for decades with limited success.
Many new homes were quickly constructed around the golf course area in clear violation of the Lake Don Pedro Owners’ Association CC&Rs (Covenants, Codes, Restrictions) which prohibited speculative and model home construction. Those very important regulations, were specifically designed and intended to prevent exactly what happened. Still, the many “difficult to develop properties” located on the steep hills around the golf course where a traditional “on site” septic system would be too expensive or inadequate, required some sort of waste disposal system for housing development to proceed. (Reminds me of how Mariposa County allowed construction of several extremely dangerous and nonconforming “developer convenience roads” for “difficult to develop properties” on hillsides and flood prone low areas. Inferior and dangerous public roadways constructed in a HIGH FIRE SEVERITY ZONE some 12 years AFTER the 1991 State Responsibility Area FIRE SAFE minimum roadway standards were established because they were CHEAPER, EASIER, AND COULD BE COMPLETED QUICKLY in contrast to the more expensive, permitted, and legally compliant individual driveways to each proposed house.)
ANYWAY….., so what was the original answer to the pro-development push around the golf course?
Simply have LAFCO create a special benefit sewer service zone financially dependent on the residents who will receive that special service benefit. At first blush the plan appears to be very reasonable until you discover how it was executed.
Yes it sounds cynical, but seriously…
why would the county be concerned with all the development it was approving or the proper functioning and utilization of a special benefit waste water treatment system for that area if the whole thing was going to be “DUMPED” on the LDPCSD anyway?
(Always easier to gamble with another person’s money yeah?)
The county could permit any proposed development it wanted that would increase their revenue stream (permits, inspections, taxes,etc.) regardless of potential, or known, high risk for failure or later difficulties because that sewer nightmare was going to be forced on the LDPCSD, and the LDPCSD could then just pass those additional expenses onto the MR WECs of the LDP subdivision.
PERFECT!
MANDATORY LDPCSD CUSTOMERS SINCE THEY OWNED PROPERTY IN THE SUBDIVISION –
WHO’S ONLY ESCAPE FROM FURTHER UNFAIR (ILLEGAL?) ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES (if they even found out) WAS TO SELL THEIR PROPERTY AT A LOSS AND MOVE.
A double bonus!
The real estate/land development interests that set this whole scam up with LAFCO in the first place will win either way!
If an owner stays – they will subsidize ANYTHING FORCED ON THEM and if they choose to abandon their dream of living in these beautiful foothills – realtors would still be making money on the resale of “improved properties”.
Why sell a property only once when you can create and perpetuate an environment encouraging multiple sales of the same lot?
So here we are in 2018 with the same old problem – not enough paying residential customers around the golf course area to financially support the second facility or operate it as designed. Again, you can’t blame the people living there now who are fighting to prevent their monthly fees from tripling to avoid state receivership, they are like the rest of us – trying to survive the best they can with what they have.
If any “blame” is to be assigned it should obviously fall on those individuals and entities who intentionally violated the law, and/or the public’s trust for the sake of their own personal and/or business motivated interests.
Ready for a shitty joke?
Despite all the fabricated documents, and the continued lying and cheating CRAP produced by these outside POU water service advocates –
there still is NOT ENOUGH CRAP for that waste water facility to operate as designed.
If there was true responsibility/accountability, all those disruptive big mouths (most connected with local real estate) who advocated the violation of our existing regulations and supported that invading land developer’s exploitation of our subdivision and reources – they would be forced (like MR WECs are being forced to pay for this nonsense) to purchase a home around the golf course, move there, and live the rest of their miserable deceitful lives supporting it financially and physically, ie, with their money and the same sort of excrement they used to create the problem in the first place!
ooooh, too harsh?
Consider, this “under use” of the waste facility may have also been a variable in Mariposa County’s decision to ultimately use the facility to dump and process tanker truck loads of leachate hauled from the Mariposa County landfill to the Don Pedro facility when excessive precipitation caused their holding pond of the toxic substance to overflow. (Or perhaps the second replacement sewer facility was always intended to be a secondary use “leachate processing facility” for the landfill problem during heavy rain and snow melt?) Regardless, tanker truck loads of the “varying degrees of toxic fluid” were hauled to Lake Don Pedro during the cover of night and dumped in the system with the eventual remaining solid material also trucked out to agricultural interests in the lower San Joaquin Valley. Lovely. The repetitious heavy weight transportation over our deteriorating rural roads probably wasn’t too helpful either.
ANYWAY……
QUESTION: So how are the MR WECs of Lake Don Pedro residential subdivision also subsidizing the DON PEDRO WASTE WATER FACILITY?
{come on now….as much as I repeat myself repeat myself ….you should know this one…… come on… how are MR WECs also paying a portion of the sewer service for and around the golf course?.……we pay extra $$$ because……??????}
ANSWER: Because the second waste water plant the County of Mariposa and LAFCo planned and developed was on land OUTSIDE THE PLACE OF USE for Merced River water per Water License 11395 and therefore MUST BE PROVIDED EXPENSIVE GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION to operate.
(Recall my wondering if LAFCO commissioner Erickson was related to the Erickson Ranch owner on Ranchito Drive who sold properties the County used to construct the new sewer plant and spray field on Ranchito Drive? Where I acknowledged, like with my own last name being the same as another Commissioner, that it could have just been a co-incidence? Certainly not making any accusations, just trying to figure out why some pretty “bonehead” decisions have been made considering the reality of the Merced River water restrictions in WL11395. Yes! I admit it! I was a Boy Scout and want to believe the best in people….after all, what is the road to hell paved with? Good intentions, yeah? I certainly don’t mean to suggest, nor do I want to believe, that the people involved with this stuff are necessarily evil and/or politically dedicated to harming our nation for their personal/political ideals through the corruption of local government and our system of justice. Obviously there are individuals and organizations active in such pursuits, but I’d rather believe these people were just the “big fish in a little local pond” utilizing their intelligence, experience, power and authority (even if granted through public trust) to push through annexations and land development proposals that could not have stood on their own merit if existing rules, regulations and the law were followed. Why did they do this? Who knows? Friendship? Business deal? Ignorance? Tricked? Who knows without the facts or a deathbed confession?
Just think about those multiple bites at that LAKE SHORE RANCH “annexation apple” for a 900 acre residential subdivision that was either:
1) approved back in 1995 and essentially kept a secret from the public and MR WECs for over twenty years, or more likely,
2) had it’s designation quietly changed and approved from SOI (Sphere of Influence) to being within the LDPCSD service boundary with cannibalized parts of previous (perhaps even different) resolutions and pieced together to gain that LAFCo-LDPCSD agreed decision to change the LDPCSD water service district boundary in 2014. LAFCO and LDPCSD ANNEXATION RESOLUTIONS
(Kampa probably also needs this “EXPANDED BOUNDARY MAP” due to all the “FAKE POU MAPS” he had already provided to state and federal departments for all that grant money to construct and develop the groundwater wells necessary for his “alternate source” to serve the LAFCO annexed properties brought into LDPCSD service area – despite still being outside the POU of the water license and prohibited Merced River water!) LAFCO had also always illustrated the Lake Shore Ranch proposed annexation as SOI (Sphere of Influence) – even in the published County Municipal Service Review of 2008.
Then, only a few months before PETE KAMPA’s unethical return as GM in October 2014 (a return orchestrated by outside MIDPOU cattle rancher and sitting Director Emery Ross), in a meeting in Mariposa between LAFCO and LDPCSD officials, it was agreed to change the service boundary map and include the Lake Shore Ranch proposed subdivision that Pete Kampa had worked on twenty years earlier! All done in a SEMI-CLOSED PUBLIC MEETING that I was prohibited from attending. Although still a director on the board who had studied the issue for years and was catching a ride to Mariposa with the citizen commissioner Ken Kennedy, I was repeatedly told I could not attend that meeting by the GM and Board President who stated it would be a Brown Act violation yet EMERY ROSS as an OUTSIDE POU COMMERCIAL CATTLE RANCHING SITTING DIRECTOR was permitted to participate in an OUTSIDE POU LDPCSD CURIOUS BOUNDARY CHANGE? Sounds more like a conflict of interest.)
Then there’s the matter of how that waste water facility was initially set up for billing – also rather suspicious.
Well, here’s another day side-tracked due in part to the below report I ran across while picking up from the most recent avalanche of paperwork in my study. (No serious injuries, but thanks for asking – lol) Posted below was the first part of an OUTSIDE PLACE OF USE GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTED WATER SERVICE “BILLING CORRECTION” for the Don Pedro Waste Water facility, which as I recall, actually ended up being
$45,000 with the LDPCSD receiving $40,000 in reimbursement.
(Despite objections from Director Ross who felt it unfair for those customers to pay for what they used.)
A continuing SUBSIDIZED GROUNDWATER SERVICE and a FREE “WRONG METER” PROVIDING FREE GROUNDWATER FOR YEARS until the issue was finally pursued and corrected?
Yup, no wonder the County from the beginning intended to “DUMP” this waste water facility on their LDPCSD – or rather the victim MR WECs of their LDPCSD. (A special district which doubled as a convenient repository for all things suspicious regarding planning and land development near the Lake Don Pedro subdivision .)
Unfortunately that sewer system is even more expensive to operate now that the “sneaky meter cheat” was supposedly corrected.
This is all extremely sad but sure explains why the Lake Don Pedro subdivision does not have a more sustainable, efficient and drought resistant intake and top notch treatment equipment for some of the best quality water in the State of California! Yup, one hell of a selling point – a massive rolling foothill residential subdivision supplied with quality Merced River water right from Yosemite National Park! Only one problem….the “movers and shakers”
didn’t want our subdivision land with water,
only
our subdivision water on their land.
I still believe the Lake Don Pedro subdivision will one day be an exceptionally desirable place to live for many more residents but for that to happen our greatest natural resource of quality water must be aggressively protected.
Protected from those who have thus far only succeeded in misdirecting for decades the purpose of the LDPCSD and its surface water treatment plant to OUTSIDE WATER LICENSE PLACE OF USE PROPERTY INTERESTS while simultaneously forcing the majority of MR WECs of the subdivision to pay substantially higher costs to serve all customers a lower quality “contaminant blended water” in order to sell that “blend” outside the subdivision. Outside a subdivision where every single lot owner is entitled to the high quality Merced River water stored in Lake McClure at only the cost required to provide such water service.
Seems to me something extremely valuable to this subdivision’s healthy maintenance and growth requires immediate protection for the other half to successfully develop in the future.
My best to you and yours, Lew
