City OKs Upgrade of Waste-Water Treatment Plant

After spending more than two years and $1 million on consultants and studies, City Council members early Wednesday voted to tentatively approve a $71.4-million upgrade of the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant, which would require a $5.20 monthly addition to residents’ water bills.

Shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday, the council voted unanimously to approve the plan in concept. The project is essentially the same one that city Public Works Director Don Nelson had been advocating all along.

“My motion’s got five votes,” Councilman Andy Fox said incredulously. “I think I’m running for speaker of Congress.”

Before the vote was even through, however, the political spin-doctoring had already begun, with both sides of the usual 3-2 council divide claiming at least a partial victory.

Mayor Judy Lazar, Councilman Mike Markey and Fox argued that the same proposal could have been approved two years earlier--and the delay will now cost taxpayers more because the lost income means the city must take out an additional $6.2 million in bonds to pay for the improvements.

The delay has also placed residents in potential danger if the aging canyon lines leading to the sewer plant are overcome by flooding this rainy season, Lazar said.

“Our residents, our community, has suffered,” Lazar said. “I fear what this community may suffer this winter if El Nino is as bad as predicted.”

Councilwomen Elois Zeanah and Linda Parks argued that although the plan was still not what they wanted, the countless debates and studies had yielded important information and even some cost savings.

For example, Parks said, a study on the sewer plant’s capacity clarified that the facility will serve a maximum of 124,000 people, not Thousand Oaks’ entire population of 135,000 people at build-out, since part of the city receives waste-water services from the Triunfo Sanitation District.

And the proposed spending plan now features about $300,000 in annual revenue Thousand Oaks is expected to receive by selling reclaimed waste water, starting at the turn of the century.

Moreover, city officials have said previously that it would not be wise to plan improvements based on income from a reclaimed-water project that was still iffy, but changed their minds after a recent state draft decision suggesting that Thousand Oaks will be able to sell the water.

The original $75-million plan also included about $4 million to replace and expand aging sewage digesters, but the council has since voted to handle those improvements separately.

“It was very difficult to get any movement,” Parks said in an interview Wednesday. “There was no effort by members of the council majority to challenge any aspect of the expensive $75-million plan proposed by staff.”

The plan still must bear the scrutiny of a Sept. 16 public hearing before council members officially approve the rate increase, which would result in a monthly fee of $17.60 for the average Thousand Oaks household.

The fee hike, which would take effect Nov. 1, would place Thousand Oaks in the middle of the pack compared to other Ventura County cities and sewer providers. Santa Paula offers the cheapest sewer service in the county at an average of $11.35, while the Ojai Valley Sanitation District charges the most, $29.72.

Paying for the sewer upgrade is one of the hot topics surrounding Zeanah’s Nov. 4 recall election.

To that end, Fox argued that the impact of the recall campaign, which has harshly criticized the second-term councilwoman for failing to approve the sewer plant, may have had as much to do with the sewer compromise as anything else.

“The fact is, there is nothing different, no factual change in the plans, from what we had two years ago,” Fox said. “What we have is political pressure that has been brought to the fore, and this is more a response to that than anything else.”

Zeanah said such considerations played no part in her vote.

“I would have thought that any council member would be happy to see the stalemate end. I guess he is not happy. Andy has been playing sewer politics with this and other issues. This is sewer politics.”

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NEXT STEP

The Thousand Oaks City Council will hold a public hearing Sept. 16 to review a plan to upgrade the Hill Canyon Wastewater Treatment Plant. The $71.4-million upgrade would be financed in part by raising residential sewer bills by an average of $5.20 per household.