Page 5 - Sonoma County Gazette - August 2017

LETTERS cont’d from page 4
For DECADES, Occidental’s treated wastewater has been dumped on unwilling persons, on their private property and into Dutch Bill Creek in violation of the rules for health and environmental safety.
Apparently this is because they are looking at a potential solution to their sewage problems that Ms. Maurice disapproves of. Can you imagine a schoolteacher, her landscaper husband, and their toddlers secretly meeting with their next door neighbor, perhaps a reman and a midwife? Do we hear furtive whispers as they secretly pursue their “nefarious, hidden, political agenda?” According to Ms. Maurice, no one in Occidental could be accused of engaging in “reasonableness, fairness, and common courtesy.”
The system is a disgrace and an embarrassment to decent people of this County. Where does Occidental’s wastewater go? Into Dutch Bill Creek onto people under threat of lengthy lawsuit and capture of their land if they try to disallow the dumping. See a particularly horri c article in the Press Democrat during Supervisor Reilly’s reign when the family was threatened with prosecution to the fullest extent of the law if they did not sign immediately a contract with the County Water Agency!
Oh come on! Do we really believe that people in Occidental wake up every morning prepared to hatch a secret plot to foist their problems on their friends and neighbors? Is it possible that folks who live in Occidental are just as sincere and good- hearted as those who live in Graton, Camp Meeker, and even Cloverdale? Perhaps they are just trying to get on with their lives’ like most of us. It’s not their individual responsibility to solve the sewage problem for the whole community. They, like the rest of us, are probably hoping that the professionals, whose job it is to solve issues like this, will propose a win-win.
The “experts” were in charge all right! But at some point, we have to take responsibility for the chaos in our own backyard lest someone accuse us of moral turpitude, moral laxity, or simply put, not giving a damn about other people and acting like demanding, manipulating, entitled prima donnas unwilling to clean up the messes we ourselves create, and leaving the job to Nero, who ddles while Rome burns!
Any construction of an on-site treatment plant is years down the road. Until that happens, would Ms. Maurice prefer that Occidental resident allow their sewage to seep into Dutch Bill Creek, and eventually the Russian River? How is that a better solution than trucking the waste to the County treatment plant?
Four years ago, we found an engineering upgrade that is a ordable and practical. The engineers said the plant could have already been built IN OCCIDENTAL. BADABOOM, BADABING DONE! Instead, our local “experts” danced to a di erent drummer and most townspeople had “better” things to do. So now, to avoid hefty nes, the Sonoma County Water Agency will truck Occidental’s raw sewage around West County to a sewage plant miles away. A good idea? You should have heard the hollers and screams from
My point, though, it not about which solution is the best. I am just getting so tired of activists demonizing those who do not hold the same opinion as them. Or, in this case, rst assuming the intentions and opinions of people they have never met, and then demonizing them. I’d ask Ann Maurice: Where is your reasonableness, fairness, and common courtesy?
Guerneville area residents who faced a future of raw sewage in tankers rumbling past their homes to dump the waste at a “lift station” in their residential neighborhood! How many Occidental residents bothered to come to that meeting to hear the cries of their Guerneville neighbors? Hardly any! How many bother themselves even now to be sure that the illegal disposal in Dutch Bill Creek and “expert” condemnation of land will be stopped?
Mark Burchill, Santa Rosa
Delegate to “Experts”?
CAUTION Advised!
Is it our individual responsibility to solve problems for the whole community? You betcha! Four years ago, four Occidental neighbors thought so, AND WE DID IT! We are not “activists” or “politicos”, just folks wise enough to know that you cannot leave life’s problems to so-called “experts”!
Hardly any!
Time for us to follow the simple
Sadly, wastewater disposal in Occidental has been an odious imposition on a family who is NOT served by the Occidental Wastewater Service District. And, most of the townspeople have enjoyed the privilege of paying absolutely no attention to the crime!
Who is that so-called “expert” behind the curtain anyway? Toto showed that he was a fraud, a humbug, a fake. Dorothy had to nd her own way and be responsible and accountable for her own destiny. So must we!
rules of “civilised” behavior: Love Thy Neighbor; Do Unto Others.....; Clean up After Yourself; and Be Considerate.
Ann Maurice
Ad Hoc Committee for Clean Water
8/17 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 5
LETTERS cont’d on page 6