Laguna Beach's Bob Whalen: Lost & Clueless Over Chronic Sewage Spills

Podcast et al Draw Back The Mask: An Empty Vessel Revealed

Breaking News:

Today, December 23, 2023 Laguna Beach experienced yet another sewage spill, right here in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Victoria Beach. Closed from Vic to The Montage Resort (In the background, top photo).

A recent report update suggests that the Point Of Discharge (POD) might have been just inside of the South Coast Water District boundary, possibly Lagunita? IOW, not from a City owned/operated portion of the greater sewage system. Area of mapped closure from OCHCA website:

Doesn't change the fact that Bob Whalen is a know-nothing, do-nothing, bogus enviro-steward or my feelings about beach closures.

After the stressors of surrounding urbanization and hoards of abusing tourists, Vic is still one of THE most beautiful, picture perfect postcard pocket beaches in all of So Cal. The beach and ocean are where I and many others like me seek sanctuary, sacred communion, and for my beach tribe this constitutes the desecration of a holy place.

Laugh if you will, but it's how we see it, no, how we "feel" it. Disbarred, dissuaded or infringed upon, impeded or denied access, whether rampant, high bacterial concentrations from pollutants in urban runoff after a rainstorm or another sewage spill, this is where we find solace from an increasingly cray-cray world.

https://mynewsla.com/orange-county/2023/12/23/stretch-of-laguna-beach-coast-closed-due-to-sewage-spill-2/

Not well known is that Vic is one of THE most constantly posted Laguna strands due to chronic high bacterial concentrations being barfed from our storm drain system. Or maybe it's puked, or perhaps excreted? Dealer's choice, Bob.

Once again, just like our wastewater system infrastructure, the City refuses to adequately plan, implement and enforce, invest, be proactive though required to do so under our Stormwater Permit. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sandiego/water_issues/programs/stormwater/faq.html#Q1

That sewer spill damage control podcast, Bob? Stay the course, thousand points of light, stem the year round tourist destination bleeding reputation, try to rebound from our now obviously "skivvy skid-mark stained" reputation, the heavy downfall fall of a classic funky So Cal beach gem?

Locals and visitors know "Vic" well, it's a #1 smash attraction on Google®, promoted up the wahzoo by our tourist industry flacks, the one that has the iconic Pirates Tower used by all as a backdrop for memento seekers and wedding parties?

Yeah, well today the ocean's closed to bodily contact, might be for several days. Just another sad example of bureaucratic sloth, whodthunkit? All of the freeking money here and we can't keep our beaches open and human-generated pollutant free?

How can a person who, like our (now ex-Mayor), is a long time resident, who has such a pedigreed educational history, who sat on our school board for a decade, City's Planning Commission for 4 years, and now on City Council for 12 years be this hopelessly ignorant, this completely unaware of not only critical historical events but basic municipal infrastructure, aka, "How Municipal Stuff Works 101?"

Obviously whomever that podcast host was gave him the time frame (a 10 minute noose), the topics in advance, hence he should have been prepared, right? Wrong.

Up to speed on the first one, the ≈ 95,000 gallon sewage spill that took place only 24 hours beforehand? Hello, is there anybody in there? Comfortably numb are we, hmmmm precious?

The first 5 minutes were carved out to let our illustrious Mayor display, brandish his vaunted comprehension about not only THAT spill, but provide context and calm his fellow residents, right?

Wrong. I know how boojie beige he is, but his blasé "meh" is really annoying, just another glitch in that big wastewater machine, as if it's the cost of doing our "business" (get it?) .....as if "What's a few thousand (or million) gallons of sewage more or less amongst my residents, huh?"

At least demonstrate and exhibit his comprehension of Laguna's storm and wastewater system, their interplay during spills, our failed history in this century, or at least on his watch, right? Wrong.

Sad doesn't begin to describe my thoughts: Stupid? A person would either have to keep plausible deniability conveniently handy (after all, he's rumored to be an attorney), dumb doesn't cover it but stupid does.

Weird to me was a burning question never asked: Uncle Bob couldn't even finish a thought, download the discrete AB 411 guidelines or OCHCA drills regarding timelines, duties, etc.. The disaster actually took place at dawn (≈ 6am from the EPA report I read), how many hours later DID our city post and close the 2 miles of beaches?

He admitted to the instigation time but wouldn't it have been nice to know exactly WHEN it hit the beach below the spill? First responders and their departments? How many were dispatched?

Intel from reporting agencies indicates 3-4 hours later, and at ground zero (Bluebird) who or what staff were there to be proactive, inform and restrain any "Dawn Patrol" parties? Great Mayoral leadership, pretty encouraging huh?

After watching him at Council but also at the our wastewater JPA, the SOC Wastewater Authority, just "Plain old doltish Bob mode" seems a good sobriquet. I liken him to (What, me worry?) Alfred E. Neumann of Mad Magazine. He just sits there like the proverbial lump on a log.

Hey, maybe a 3rd choice? He doesn't care, all of that "protect the resident's health and safety" stuff is well, what sewer spills are made up of: Plain old crap.

Which does help explain why he anointed himself to represent us at the JPA, he feels right at home around BS, up to his eyeballs, it's natural, native habitat for career politicians AND lawyers.

Here's some low-lights of his interview, where Bob fell short, which judging by the Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Honarkar's Hotel Laguna "hands on guns, hostile takeover" debacle, he does a lot of....let's face it, keeping an attorney honest is difficult.

https://www.voiceoflaguna.com/...

That November 27, 2019 35 foot high sewage geyser at The Ranch Resort, on the golf course next to Aliso Creek, the one on a family holiday "Turds-giving?" (Couldn't resist)

"It was 2 or 3 million gallons million gallons."

Nope, Bob, it was 1.87 mg total, discharged in 2 places. Where were you, to NOT know that? "Yawn, ho hum.......nothing to see here."

At the December 12, 2023 LBCC meeting he described it as a "million gallon spill," these days doubling down on dumbness much, Bob?

But hey, c'mon, who's counting, what's a million or so gallons of raw sewage, more or less, to you anyway? Gotta love his memory and its precision. Details allude him. Only 4 years ago, and it's already lost in the fog of raising funds for his 2024 campaign, huh?

Fact: About 1.37 mg was then delivered to Aliso Creek Beach via the creek, the other 500,000 gallons below the Surf & Sand, at Bluebird Beach. Hey Bobby, that's the same place where we had to dump that 95,000 gallons this last month. Oh, you were busy having coffee and croissants with the fam, my bad, sorry.

Why divert and dump? Because in order to depressurize the forced main North Coast Interceptor System (NCIS) back on Turds-giving 2019, temporarily bypass it while repairs took place on the golf course, there was nowhere for the backed up wastewater to go.

Bluebird was the next major pump relay station up PCH. FYI to browsers: We collect ≈ 2 mgd in this NCIS. The City low-balled a known fact: The ecological damage didn't only occur at Aliso Creek Beach (1 mile from the original upstream catastrophe) but omg, whodathunkit?

The same storm drain system outlet that carried and discharged the sewage overflow at Bluebird from last week's calamity, Bob.

Another fact, when someone like Bob is either too thick to absorb info or just in CYA mode: There were, if memory serves, 3 previous spills attributed to problems at/adjacent to that SAME pump station circa 2002--2012.

I remember one in particular there about 15 years ago that was about 600,000 gallons? Ah yes, the Bluebird Pump Station: "The gift that keeps on giving."

And that constant noxious odor issue at the adjacent Glenneyre/Calliope dip, attributed to that station? To Bob that must be the sweet smell of success.

Park around Nyes Place and PCH, walk along or drive your car with the windows rolled down in the early am when the NCI slows down, the heavy gases like H2S/Methane lay down too.......from there, along PCH to The Montage?

Breathe, breathe in the air, Bob. Don't be afraid to care. That's the smell of victory (think Apocalypse Now), of successful investments in maintenance and operations as Bob put it.

Bob doesn't know how old our system is either, he flailed, flinched and struggled when asked. If he only looked at the history of the abandoned digester downtown, the controversial one that some want to save the last vestige of, the tower? What doesn't he remember or know, and when doesn't he remember or know it?

Or the creation of the Coastal Treatment Plant just above the golf course back in the late 70s--early 80s, where we send our sewage? That's featured at SOCWA's website, and hey Bob?

That facility was the multi-year bone of contention while SOCWA litigated Moulton Niguel Water District, when we were a party to that multi-million $$$ litigation only a few years ago, on your watch Bob---either as Mayor or Mayor Pro Tem.

Our system is, in fact, a "kludged," patched together one as we built out: Some easily 75 years old, the newer sections spliced in/added on, to create the NCIS circa 1980. Yeah, Bob, we spend millions every year on maintaining our storm and wastewater systems because we have permits that REQUIRE such best management practices. That's the cost of doing business, overhead.

Meanwhile, these systems continue to age, to deteriorate, and we're using the band-aid approach: We only do costly repairs as a function of enormous failure like last week. Or 4 years ago. Or 10 years ago. Or 15 years ago, whatevs.

I wish the podcast interviewer had asked him why is it that every year we have millions in surplus funds, but never set aside 1-2/year out of the budget for modernization, for upgrades? Proactive obviates the need for expensive, bad PR reactive responses every time. EPA gets that, so what about Bob?

Grants. Oh yeah Bob, state and/or federal EPA is just going to bury us in grant money to fix what WE let go broken. Earth to Bob? I know you're enamored with your gross sum, go-to funding mechanism, Bobby Bonds. Which just stretch out and delay the pain, at least until you're either out of office or pushing dirt.

Doesn't he ask staff to explain these things, have enough concerns and intellectual curiosity to inquire, after all, he was SUPPOSED to be some fiscal wizard that LBCC Elizabeth Pearson god-mothered on to the Planning Commission and then Council, to get the $$$ to build a real fiasco, that black hole, multi-level parking structure at the Village Entrance around 2010-12, isn't he?

This is in my profession field, and guess what any fool investigating what Bob brought up in the podcast would know (or anyone awake at a SOCWA hearing)? These types are dominantly matching grants, translation: We'd have to put up a very very large sum, depending on the matching % requisites.

Oh, I get it: Rob Peter to pay Paul. We take out a bond for the seed money or matching %, a municipal Ponzi scheme, right Bob? Think anyone would catch that "magic" mid-stride?

Some are 75/25, some are 2/3--1/3, some 50/50. We're the % on the right, and so now go back to 2006 when the city: (A) Adopted a Zero Tolerance Policy for spills, and (B) Estimated that we needed about $50 million to get up to modern industry standards for the 2 named systems.

In today's $$$, to modernize but also to build a parallel sewer system to the existing one, that could take these overflows and send them south, precluding our storm drain system excreting them out on our beaches and closing beaches? (Bobby Bonds brought that up in the VOL podcast).

Probably $125-150 million easily by now as we didn't invest in our future to keep them up to par in this century. New technologies aren't cheap, and when the entire systems in question haven't had any gross funding on my 26 year watch, the tab will be horrifying, an environmental nightmare: Just like having Bob Whalen on our City Council.

Outdoing himself, he performed a perfect face plant while being interviewed by Logan Hall of Spectrum News:

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/orange-county/environment/2023/11/29/stretch-of-laguna-beach-coast-closed-due-to-sewage-spill

So if he runs again, are voters here also clueless, are they, like him, a poster child of ignorance and stupidity, why trust someone who only "mails it in," is there for the photo op ribbon cuttings and although supposedly knowledgeable about financing, a veritable dead end for our city's world stage image and his only solution is to ream his taxpayer's pockets?

Announce you're not seeking re-election now and who knows, some might find it in their hearts to forgive you. Won't be me, CWN's lashings will continue until something really changes, like you taking your "business" elsewhere.