The Better System

By David B. "Dave" Duggan

Both plans do not meet with the requirements or the intent of the policies handed down to us as a region. The C.C.R.W.Q.C.B. has failed to come up with the best course of action concerning the Central Coast and has divided communities in their attempt to micro manage a regional problem.

The cost of state water and the bill for this current W.W.T.P. will make living in Los Osos impossible for many on fixed incomes and other lower wage workers. If you add the cost of energy to run the current project and other hidden cost, you can see why this project falls short of the true intent of over-all policies.

The Better Plan

My expertise in power generation allows me to look at this problem from a different angle. A waste water treatment plant with methane recovery and its use to power generators may cost more in the short run, but as soon as the generators come on line the over-all energy bills will decrease and the system will start paying for itself through the selling of electricity on the open market. The combination of water reclamation and energy sufficiently will take care of two problems and will lead to the solving of the third problem of build out. Only a portion of the sewage has to be used for the methane recovery and the sludge from that process will be what proponents of this system call a "premium by-product." This plan would also come under several Federal umbrellas. Funding, both corporate and governmental, are available. Any project that produces clean water and energy will get a streamlining of the permitting process in all governmental areas.

The economic resources we are squandering now should be going into a project for the 21st Century but the 20th Century thinking of our leaders will give us a short sighted instant gratification plan and will not meet the needs of this community or the region nor the country as a whole. Clean water and renewable energy resource development is a Federal mandate and should be considered first in any planned development of this magnitude.

That is why I believe that a review of state and federal policies and the purging of higher authority of backwards thinking self-absorbed "autocrats" should be a priority so we as a nation as well as a community can move in the direction envisioned by forward thinking "experts". I understand that the rush to build out and the assertion of power by appointed officials has led us away from a better, far sighted system. These individuals do not have the vision to see the intent of the policies that have been handed down by both Federal and State officials. Until we regain control over our own future we will be hamstrung by those who are still stuck in an "old world" way of thinking.