Water Quality at the Head of the Deschutes River

 A committee that is continuing the interminable discussion about whether to protect water quality at the head of the Deschutes River is meeting on July 15, 2011.  It took me three clicks through links to find the right place to find more information.  A look at the most recent meeting notes (May 2011) were not illuminating because of the non-information that made it into the notes.  No copies of the presentations provided... I guess the public is expected to listen to the recordings to get information.  Notes from the June meeting are non-existent.  Hard to say what to think about this other than this DEQ process is not what you could describe as transparent....meanwhile the reasonable person can only assume that the red blob on the map is only getting redder and bigger... and more and more public funds are swirling down the toilet...

The South Deschutes and North Klamath County Groundwater Protection Project Steering Committee will meet to discuss topics including:
• Strategic planning for communications and outreach
• Subcommittee Updates: Options, Domestic Well Sampling, Spray Field Well Data
 
 For more information, please see the news release: 
http://www.deq.state.or.us/news/prDisplay.asp?docID=3656

Outside the Box - 2

As promised, here is the next chapter in the story of blindered thinking and greed to follow up on "Outside the Box - 1."

To sum, my previous post presented the City of Bend's position on proposals by citizens or developers, or in this case, public entities, trying to make their dollars work for the general good. The City is opposed to having individual systems within reach of their sewer system because then they don't get their new cash cow. In this particular case we have a public entity that found out how much the city would charge to connect to sewer and is opting to do an individual system because they are actually in a location that allows them to avoid the duplicative fees the city would charge if they were in the city limits/service area. End of story, right?

Nope, this is just where it starts to get interesting because the state representative of the Oregon DEQ's Onsite Program (this is the program that issues permits and oversees individual wastewater treatment systems) is putting the heat on the public entity to connect to sewer.

What's wrong with this picture? DEQ is a state agency facing potentially significant budget cuts, along with all the other state agencies in Oregon, that is telling another public entity to pay permit fees and service fees (forever) to the city of Bend. I wish my budget were so healthy that I have the luxury to send business away. But I must say that I have a healthier belief in my own capabilities than this DEQ person. If this person is working in a job in which they so little belief in that program's capability to (in DEQ's case) protect public health and the environment, then that person is taking the public's money for doing work they either don't have the expertise to do or that they believe is work is not worth doing. In the first case, this person should be reassigned to a position for which they are qualified (perhaps this is the Peter Principle at work?), in the second case, they should be fired for ethics violations for taking public money under false pretenses.