Idyllwild Sewer Project Plan--It’s Neighbor Against Neighbor

A plan to triple the size of a sewer system here has torn apart this once-peaceful community of 3,000 people in the San Jacinto Mountains, turning neighbor against neighbor.

The proposed $15.6-million project ostensibly would prevent faulty septic tanks from polluting the local water table. It would also spur development in an area that has not seen significant change in 20 years--and that has some residents in an uproar.

“The opponents are hoping for a moratorium on construction here,” said Jim Palmer, a local real estate agent in favor of the project. “They are trying to slam the door on others who want to come.”

Opponents agree that massive development is a fear. But they are also skeptical about the area’s need for the system and worried that some here may not be able to afford assessments to pay for the sewers that could run as high as $5,000 per lot in some areas.

Idyllwild has had pollution problems from septic tanks in the past, and local water districts have sought a multimillion-dollar federal grant to expand the area’s sewage plant and get more residents off subsurface waste-water treatment systems.

Current building and health codes, zoning regulations and a limited number of buildable parcels have all but precluded high-density development until now. But some developers hope--and some residents fear--that expansion of the sewer system would make it easier to win approval to build additional homes, apartments and condominium complexes.

“My alternative is to keep Idyllwild on the same reasonable growth pattern it has been on since I moved here in 1953,” said Wallace Best, 60, a former professor at Harvard University and now a paid consultant to an anti-sewer project group called Citizens for Conservation of Southwest Riverside County.

“I would not like to see it duplicate Big Bear with its wall-to-wall people,” Best said. “And I am absolutely convinced that there is no pollution problem that will be remedied by what they are proposing.”

Best, among others, is actively seeking an alternative to the sewer project that would have less of an effect on the local environment. The project would expand the area’s 17-year-old waste-water treatment plant and connect about 1,700 additional lots in Idyllwild and in the neighboring unincorporated communities of Pine Cove and Fern Valley, state water officials said. However, most of the area would remain on subsurface systems managed under “septic tank maintenance zones” formed by local water districts, these officials said.

The project could raise property values of certain parcels by 33% to 50%, and increase the area’s annual population growth rate from the current 2% to 3% up to 5%, according to Ryder Ray, a local water official and leader of the fight to have the project built.

“Some people don’t talk to me like they used to over this,” Ray said. “But if this project doesn’t go through, in five years there will be the biggest (pollution) mess here you ever saw.”

Still, controversy could kill a $9.8-million federal Clean Water Act grant earmarked to build the project, said Joanne Schneider, an environmental specialist with the state Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is ready to make a final determination on the grant,” Schneider said. “Significant controversy could derail it.”

She said the ruling by the EPA is expected to be made by February.

Schneider warned, however, that failure to remedy the area’s water problems now might result later in regulatory action, which could include cease-and-desist orders against problem discharges. “If this project is derailed, we will not go away,” she said. “We cannot say that it is OK to pollute the water there.”

Idyllwild and its neighboring communities, which are nestled in a narrow valley at the 6,000-foot level of the rugged, boulder-strewn San Jacinto Mountains about 110 miles east of Los Angeles, receive water from three local water districts that draw from wells, springs and streams, officials said.

In the late 1970s, a series of tests showed that a major source of water, Strawberry Creek, was polluted with fecal bacteria believed to have come from septic tanks, state water officials said.

Coalition Formed

The local water districts formed a coalition called the San Jacinto Mountain Area Water Study Agency to assess the threat of pollution and to seek federal funds to solve the problem, said Ray, grant manager of the study group.

In 1981, the agency received a $2.8-million federal grant to finance the design and part of the construction of improvements to the sewer system. But the resulting plan, which officials said would cost $3.2 million to build, foundered in the planning stages for years because of delays, amendments and a change in project engineers, officials said.

This year, the new engineering firm, Metcalf & Eddy of San Bernardino, stunned local residents by announcing that the cost of the project had soared to $15 million. Officials said federal grants would cover about $10 million of the project and residents would be assessed for the remainder.

The new cost estimate created a wave of anger, confusion and mistrust in the community. Ever since, residents have found themselves at odds over the issue.

“The major issue here is environmental--what kind of life style do we want to see in the future?” said project opponent Alan Covell after a recent strategy meeting held in Idyllwild that drew about 50 people, including some leaders from a similar anti-sewer effort in Malibu. “I do not want to see overdevelopment, increased traffic, high-density dwelling units or water shortages.”

Some developers have already begun preparing for the project to succeed. On June 30, for example, a local newspaper published an advertisement that read: “If you think your acreage or lot in Pine Cove, Idyllwild or Fern Valley is suited for multiple development as apartments or condos, and it will be served by the proposed sewer--we have a client who wants to negotiate with you now!”

Opponent as Proponent

Leland Swanson, an Idyllwild resident who has actively fought the project, said he was the “client” referred to in that advertisement. He acknowledged the apparent contradiction and called it “double-think.”

“First of all, I do think a sewer will ruin this hill,” Swanson said. “But if it does go multiple (dwellings), I would be foolish to sit here and not profit from a large tract of land. . . . What should I do, stand with my hat in my hand while others make a profit?”

“That certainly causes problems in terms of my relationship with him,” said Best, who was shocked to learn that Swanson, with whom he has worked closely against the project, may have had two agendas. “I wonder what the heck he was thinking of in the first place.”

Ernie Maxwell, 76, who moved here in 1946 when there were only a few sawmills, cattle ranches, churches and 500 permanent residents, lamented the ruckus that has disrupted daily life here. But he figures that Idyllwild’s years of quiet and solitude may be over--with or without the sewer.

“For a long time, nobody knew we were here . . . but over the years, the urban masses have been moving closer and closer,” said Maxwell, a resident historian known in these parts as “The Old Man of the Mountain.”

“Now we’re like a prime fishing hole that everybody knows about,” he said. “I think the sewer is only a sign of what’s coming down the road.”