New Sewer Study Prompts Round of Council Deja Views

Some things never change: The sun always rises, the Chicago Cubs never win the National League pennant, and this City Council bickers fruitlessly over the upgrade of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant.

After reviewing a $25,000 consultant’s report on the expansion of the aging sewer plant--the latest in what has amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of expert opinions on the project--council members on Tuesday sniped at each other over who had been proven right by the study.

The report, an independent analysis of the city’s future sewage needs, was intended to resolve one of the major sticking points in the 2-year-old impasse: whether the sewer plant needs to be expanded from treating 10 million to 14 million gallons per day, as Public Works Director Don Nelson and a previous consultant had recommended. Released last month, the review concluded that Nelson and the other consultant had been on target, and if anything, had actually underestimated the sewage capacity needed. It recommended a capacity of 14.4 million gallons daily. And everyone on the council claimed it validated their earlier stance on the divisive issue, albeit for different reasons. “We’re not going to get through this stalemate if we continue to argue about who is right, not what is right,” Councilman Andy Fox said. “And what’s right is 14 million gallons per day.”

Mayor Judy Lazar, Fox and Councilman Mike Markey said the report proved the disputed 14-million figure had been accurate. They had supported Nelson’s recommendation, saying they had no reason to question the findings of the city’s experts.

Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks saw something different--something that justified their earlier position. Zeanah and Parks had sided with another city consultant, disputing Nelson’s recommendation and maintaining that Thousand Oaks could take care of its future sewage needs with a plant capacity of 12 million gallons per day. Anything larger, they said, would leave Thousand Oaks open to greater growth than the city’s General Plan allows.

On Tuesday, however, Parks and Zeanah said the latest consultant’s report, though it reached a similar conclusion to the earlier consultant’s study, used methodology they agreed with. To come to its conclusion, the new report assumed the population in the area served by the sewer plant would be 124,000--not the 139,000 number used in the earlier consultant’s report. The population in Thousand Oaks at build-out is estimated at 136,000, but residents in the eastern part of the city belong to the Triumfo Sanitation District, so the build-out population using the sewer plant will be smaller.

“I think the irony is that we are all right,” Parks said.

Parks and Zeanah said when the report was issued that they would support its findings, and they did, as council members received the report with an unanimous vote.

But as the report was formally discussed Tuesday night, it became apparent that the stalemate was far from over.

Capacity is only one of the issues behind the deadlock. The larger difference of opinion over who should pay for the expansion, which could cost as much as $75 million, remains unresolved.

Parks and Zeanah contend that developers can and should be forced to pay for the entire expansion. But Lazar, Fox and Markey side with city officials, who say that under state law developers can only be charged for a portion of the improvements.

Reaching a consensus is necessary, because the sewer fee increase that city officials are recommending to upgrade the plant requires a four-fifths vote.