Doheny Ocean Desalination Project (DODP): So. Laguna Has No Voice

Doheny Ocean Desalination Project (DODP): South Laguna Has No Voice

South Coast Water District (SCWD) is up to their old tricks. Clean Water Now (CWN) has been the only NGO to constantly monitor and keep them honest, i.e., open and transparent about the DODP. And other shenanigans, at which they excel.

The DODP was the subject of a California Coastal Commission (CCC) hearing on November 16, 2023, and for CWN it was déjà vu all over again. Except this time, it slipped past us in the bureaucratic fog. We're grass roots, self-funded, we can't track everything.

As SCWD plunges even deeper into potentially catastrophic red ink, they continue to bite off more than they can chew. They are not the little district that could, economy of scale is of utmost importance, did someone forget to tell their BODs?

They do not have the “institutional capacity,” the 3 acknowledged utility requisite metrics regarding in-house Technical, Managerial and Fiscal Capacity (USEPA terminology) to proceed, so if the agency winds up sinking, a la the Titanic, the causal factors will emerge but too late.

The warning signs are there, other SCWD proposed projects compound the fiasco, I’ll dive deeper at the end of this column. Bear with me, k?

No fanfare, no media publicity that I or my network saw, the usual modus operandi was invoked for the latest chapter of CCC hijinks, no doubt to lessen public criticism.

I couldn’t find one person who’d heard or knew of this venue’s convening. SCWD’s formula for suppression is therefore their “go to” tactic: If no one knows, no one can object.

I wrote about this dynamic previously. Google® my name and that of this project, a lot of previous criticism and warnings in abundance.

SCWD sought and has been granted by the CCC the right to conduct further hydrogeological testing plus 2 monitoring wells. The wells will supposedly serve to help them decide the best locations for their experimental slant well arrays, i.e., proposed in 2-3 well groupings or clusters.

Except that’s where it all goes south, comes unraveled: The general public probably thought after the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board certification, the Cali Coastal Commission hearing, et al, that everything was locked in. Including the science supporting the conclusions reached? Nope, they still lack a database robust enough to integrate into their project decision tree.

We were all provided detailed maps at hearings, under the impression that SCWD’s vendor, GeoScience®, had finished their hydrogeological condition studies and being the patent holder for this slant well technology, a done deal struck.

Arguably, we were duplicitously led to believe that we’d already been given the completed site plans packet for review and thus discrete information to facilitate formal hearing input by stakeholders. Suckers, that’s what SCWD took all of us for, fools, bait and switch legerdemain their forte.

As CWN has repeatedly noted, the glaring conflict of interest is insulting, the patent holder is the primary analyst, conclusively in glowing terms green lights the project to benefit himself and his corporation financially, but that hasn’t kept SCWD from advancing at a snail’s pace these past 10 years. No, snails actually move faster but they too do leave a slimy trail.

Media, instead of investigating and questioning why a project launched by the Municipal Water District of OC (MWDOC) over 20 years ago is crawling, staggering, dragging itself towards some kind of finality, the finish line.

Gleefully, gratefully pouring DODP kool-aid, media do the heavy propagandistic lifting for SCWD by basically reformatting their press releases and public service announcements as "pseudo-investigative journalism" articles.

Presently, still lacking certification by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and a contractual agreement with California State Parks regarding the 2-year displacement of the campground access and site rentals, it’s looking more and more like 2031 or later before 1 drop of drinking water for sale/distribution is produced.

Since SCWD became the sole agency those 10 years ago, all of the former partners left the fold, costs have soared, final tab projections now at more like $150 million----and not one outside agency has signed a contract to purchase the water when the plant is fully up and running.

I work in the water/wastewater industry in SOC, not one engineer other than those at MWDOC (the originator) or SCWD believes the price will be anywhere close to publicized Pollyanna estimates, on par with other reclamation strategies.

The reality? SCWD doesn’t really know what it’ll cost until fully tested and online, they just guess and toss some numbers out there as appetizers, to entice.

In fact, SOC might be better served if the member agencies of the region’s JPA, the South Orange County Wastewater Authority (SOCWA) and other adjacent utilities, pursued Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) or Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR) of our wastewater and excess runoff because at ≈ $2200/acre foot, they’d be cheaper than the DODP, indefinitely so.

Also disconcerting is what CWN brought to the forefront several years ago, when SCWD was under siege, being forced to move towards divisions: SCWD itself was a result of an agency consolidation approved by the Local Agency Formation Commission of Orange County (LAFCO), effective January 1, 1999, and “So Lag” residents quickly lost their rights regarding SCWD decisions.

Two SCWD at-large board members, back in/around 2000 or so, voluntarily left the board, vacated their seats and were never replaced. One lived in So Lag, Eric Jessen, and he has had a death grip on a pitifully weakend successor: The So Lag Water and Sewer Advisory Committee (SLWSAC), boundary from Nyes Place to Three Arch Bay.

A City of Laguna Beach sub-committee, Mayor Pro Tem Sue Kempf as liaison, is a proxy for the general So Lag population, and btw, does she even live there? Translation: It’s a freeking advisory committee, has indirect decision-making power per se. If it did have any discretionary power, she’d wield it, plus can bury issues, manipulate proactively, get it?

Though I wrote several columns about my distress a few years ago, vigorously attempted to ring the alarm bell by appearing at hearings regarding breaking from at-large to divisions, only a few So Lag residents seemed concerned: Michele Monda and MJ Abraham, two of our most indefatigable, vigilant, outstanding community "actionists" and prolific writers.

Meanwhile, back at those hearings: I took SCWD head on regarding the disenfranchisement for So Lag residents over the course of the past 20 years, those of voting age ignored, yet I couldn’t get any substantial traction in that portion of the greater Laguna Beach community for reform, a redress of grievances via the ballot box.

My research indicates that in September 2021, there were over ≈2500+ registered voters in So Lag, about 14% of Laguna's total.

South Laguna Civic Association (SLCA) CLAIMS they are the vox populi, formed for the general benefit and in the best interest of So Lag citizens, are its protectors and governmental watchdogs, yet never showed up at the multiple, by-division-formation hearings. MIA.

Nor to my knowledge even bothered with a letter, although God knows how they like to write letters bragging about themselves and their stellar history. Obviously, they’re paper tigers. I’ve always suspected they only represent a few hundred residents at most, and that sustains my contention.

As a 52-year resident, who lived in So Lag for 5 of them , I’m vexed, why no open outrage? Having such a high profile at City Council and candidate forums during election cycles, SLCA apparently squanders its power. Do-nothings about their own rights, especially ones that effect future water and sewage rates.

In fact, CWN pled the case FOR So Lag residents even though I personally live just north of the district’s boundary, @ approximately St. Catherine’s School near Ruby’s Diner. This is a type of blatant, environmental justice failure, I believe a cure or remedy could be had: In OC Superior Court and/or a LAFCO petition challenge. Suspiciously, why haven't ANY of our Councilmembers led that charge?

The South Orange County Wastewater Authority (SOCWA), created by LAFCO in 2001 as a utility consolidation, is currently going through what may be described as massive reorganization, revisioning, restructuring. Some is attributable to Irvine Ranch and Trabuco Canyon Water District’s withdrawal from the JPA.

The other major factor being Santa Margarita Water District’s annexation of San Juan Capistrano’s water and wastewater utility a few years ago, shrinking the JPA down to 7 members.

Red ink: Unbeknownst to So Lag, in their name, SCWD is pushing to become the sole operators of the 2 coastal waste treatment facilities: The JB Latham Plant in Dana Point, and the Coastal Treatment Plant in Aliso Canyon, just upstream of The Ranch Resort.

Presently owned and operated by SOCWA, SCWD has even expressed interest in owning AND operating both----even though they’ve never done either previously, have no experience thereof.

This would involve taking on tens of millions of $$$ in potential debt service, high yearly Operation & Maintenance expenditures and (revisit my 2nd paragraph) could not only jeopardize SCWD’s liquidity, but if something major leads to a massive sewage spill, the sanctions (fines) could be astronomical, the damage control in media tsunami-like, national news.

SCWD is writing checks with its mouth that it can’t possibly cash, but that’s not stopping it from agency overreach or recruiting Laguna to take on a significant % burden due to overlapping or shared, co-mingled infrastructure. And guess whose been sitting as our representative, Laguna Beach’s board member at SOCWA, in lock step with their ridiculous ambitions: Laguna’s Mayor Bob Whalen.

I’ve had to sit and watch in pain and disbelief, listen to him say that nothing’s broken at SOCWA, nothing needs fixing but whatever does, he’s fine with delegating and deferring to SCWD. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

The reorganization struggle at the JPA has been a tough sled, a vibrant and peevish, at times thinly-veiled angry confrontation among the member agencies going back for least 3 years. Each member has needs that to one extent or another, compete or are in grievous conflict with at minimum one other member. Congruency, harmony are non-existent.

I know, I’ve been there and observed or tracked them online in video conferences. I guess Bob is enamored with his casual, “whistle-thru-the-graveyard” approach?

In our name, he supports SCWD 100%, damn the torpedoes for the rest of us in Laguna, we're just along for the ride. Including sending up smoke signals that we’ll purchase .5--1 million gallons a day from SCWD’s DODP too. After all, it’s not HIS money going (literally) down the toilet, kitchen drain or coming out of the tap.

Bob's on the BOD’s at SOCWA, Sue at the SLWSAC, Bob as President and Sue as VP on our Water District’s BOD, “BobbySue” (Siamese twins Bob y Sue) control and command the future of water in Laguna Beach. This reflects why them as Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem has had far-reaching consequences these past 6 years.

SCWD? Ditto in So Lag, where the marriage-from-hell cabal, a merging of agency strategies won’t be subject to voter's intense scrutiny any time soon.

None of the bad actors responsible for fiscal imprudence will be held accountable because it might be 10 years out before the catastrophes come fully to light, the contributing factors revealed. If ever.

Everyone had 20/20 hindsight after the RMS Titanic went down back when, but by then it was too late.