he Citizens for Clean Water and the Executive Director, Gail McPherson, present a nightmarish story of The California's Water Board regulators' abuse of their authority in Los Osos....Raising their enforcement hammer and violating the law and civil rights of the very citizens they were intended to protect.
Today's federal and state regulatory agencies were created to safeguard the public from corporate abuses. For decades, Americans have relied on these agencies as part of the framework that ensures the safety of our environment, water supply, workplaces, food, drugs and consumer products.
These agencies were created because businesses were operating without proper oversight, leaving Americans without any protection from many corporate abuses. Over time, however, many agencies became captured and controlled by the very industries they were intended to regulate. While this has been a longstanding problem, things have gotten far worse in California.
Regulators are increasingly dependent on large consulting firms to fund the science to promulgate the regulations they enforce. This interdependency then extends to local government agencies required to implement projects to meet the regulations. Due to the regulatory complexity, agencies have no choice but to hire these consulting and engineering firms to look out for their interests. The result is the local agency often gets over priced or unsustainable projects that enable excess profit-taking from the taxpayer funded projects.
The State Water Resources Control Board role in protecting its citizens in approving the projects and funding often has little review. The taxpayer protections have been replaced with a compromised system of regulations, funding priorities and enforcement actions designed to assist and enable private profit-making firms.
The sewer debacle in Los Osos (an unincorporated area of San Luis Obispo County) sets many precedents. It was first loan default in the history of the highly successful Federal and State Revolving Fund Loan Program. While the headlines typically blames a few vocal citizens that appeared to refuse to put a sewer their community, the real story behind the headline is Los Osos community where 30 % are fixed -moderate to low income families, created their own project oversight structure, and watched-dogged their local services district, the consulting firms, and the regulators. Their discoveries of a flawed and over-priced project resulted in a community vote to stop the highest per capita sewer project in the nation, to toss local leaders, sue the consultants and the State, to propose an alternative project, and seek investigations.
The reaction of the vote was a firestorm of actions by the State Water Board regulators who, under cover of the attorney generals office, promised to fine the local agency "out of existence" and slapped them with $6.6 mil in fines, pulled all project funding, sought special legislation to assure loan repayment, and promised to go after individuals to "change the will of the voting community."
The regulators retaliation against the voters launched the unprecedented individual enforcement actions, reserved for major polluters, but applied to regular citizens. Fifty homeowners were randomly selected from about 5000 for prosecution in 2006. With hearings and a few mock settlements each in turn were issued orders that have the power to result in loss of homes, civil liabilities of up to $5000 per day in fines, and criminal referral to the attorney general. The orders require them to hook up to a sewer that does not exist, and to vote and pass a 218 assessment that puts liens on their homes to pay an estimated $300 a month for a yet undefined project. A total of 4400 properties are threatened with similar orders if the vote does not pass.
As you can readily see, The Water Board regulators' abuse of their authority by raising the enforcement hammer violates the law and civil rights of the very citizens they were intended to protect.
Gail McPherson
Citizens for Clean Water
Prohibition Zone Legal Defense Fund
805-459-4535
www.pzldf.org
No comments:
Post a Comment